So what? We just dissapear?
by Wildjump
Summary: POST AGE OF ULTON. Tons of Spoilers so watch the movie first. Nathasha isn't handling the absence of one of her old team members in particular nearly as well as anyone had hoped. Will Steve be able to convince him to return for her sake and how will he fit into the New Avengers' world?
1. Chapter 1

Natasha hit the punching bag over and over and over. Not even Steve knew how long she had been there; she was there before the trainees arrived and stayed hours after. There were days like this and everyone in the new Avenger's compound came to recognize them and stayed out of her way at all costs. They were her "Bruce days" and instead of becoming fewer and farther between they were escalating at what was becoming a frightening progression.

Furry frowned down at the young woman attempting to destroy the sand bag in the room below his observation deck before turing to look expectantly at the man to his right. Captain America shoot his blond head and shoved his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans saying, "She opened up so much when he was here and now that he's gone... I asked her about it, but... Clint was even here the other day; he tried to get her to go stay with him and the family for a bit, but she kicked him a good one in the ribs so he moved out of the way of the bag."

"Well do something." Furry commanded his black cloak whipping out around him as he exited the room. Steve sighed, he needed to get Natasha back, but after had Clint failed it was becoming more and more clear that he needed Bruce. The Black Widow had no place on the new Avenger's team, the recruits weren't hardened veterans like the last initiative had been. They didn't have the dark outlook on life that old Avengers had and damn it if Steve didn't want to keep it that way.

"JARVIS, how long has she been at this?" Steve asked the empty room.

"Miss Romanoff entered the training room at three o' seven this morning and has not left. She has spent a total of twenty eight minutes drinking water and seventeen whipping sweat off her brow. The time is now eight fourty three in the evening." the British AI replied.

Steve shook his head, that was even worse than two days ago; this had to stop for good, but first he had to keep his teammate from killing herself. Steve took the stairs down to the training room with determination and pushed easily into the room. He strode purposefully up to the bag that she was assailing and stepped right in the line of her punch. Steve turned his face so that she hit him solidly on the jaw before flipping his head in the other direction to take her next blow. Natasha didn't stop her assault so Steve was forced to put his hands up to protect his face; he wasn't even sure she saw him. "Natasha." He said loudly trying to draw her into reality.

"My name is Natalia Romanova; I am the Black Widow; I am invincible." she chanted back at him as if she were in another world. Steve grabbed a fist in each hand forcing her by sheer power to stop punching, but she was stepping back and fighting him so hard that he had no choice but to flatten her to the ground under him. He held her still as she thrashed and fought him, but her eyes remained unfocused.

"JARVIS, get the recruits in here now!" Steve bellowed.

"Right away Sir." The AI responded.

Steve kept Natasha pinned to the ground as first Sam then Wanda came rushing in. Vision wasn't far behind and Rhodey came stumbling in dripping wet a few minutes later.

"Alright Trainees, your first official mission: Keep Natasha from hurting herself or anyone else until I get back. She doesn't seem to know who or where she is; she's back in the Red Room." Steve instructed levering himself off the thrashing woman.

"I can put her at peace for periods of time; make her think about something else." Wanda offered red wisps drifting off her hands as Natasha's face relaxed.

"What is wrong with her?" Vision asked Steve.

"She's turned full Black Widow again; we need to get our Natasha back."

At Vision's slightly confused look Rhodey said, "She's broken." and settled down next to her to wipe her drenched brow.

Steve looked down at her, her makeup was full and dark with bright red lips and smokey eyes that somehow managed not to run after so many hours of pushing herself beyond her limits. Her cheeks were red and flushed with more than just the heavy blush she wore and her brilliant green eyes look like she was staring down the apocalypse. Her hair was a full inch and a half too long and the callouses on her hands from fighting had turned to outright scars due to their continued abuse. Steve shook his head as his new teammates misguidedly tried to wright her. Wanda was pulling back her hair into a hairband as Rhodey continued to clean her up with her wash rag. Vision was propping her into a sitting position and Sam was inspecting her for injuries starting with her abused hands. The Black Widow didn't need someone to tie back her hair or check if she was hurt, but Steve would be damned if he let her become the Black Widow again.

"We'll take care of her." Wanda promised in her light Russian accent waving him on.

Steve nodded and turned for the glass doors.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked.

"To get Banner." Was his only response. They still weren't sure where Banner was exactly, but Steve was going to have to find out. Grabbing one of the Stark tablets Steve flagged down a free quinjet pilot and gestured that the young woman should follow as he marched onto the deck of one of the planes. She dutifully climbed in the cockpit knowing better then to make the Captain wait when he was in such a temper. Steve made his way into the cockpit only long enough to put in the coordinates for the nearest low density population land mass to the place where the ship was thought to have gone down before taking his seat in the back politely turing down the young pilot's offer for him to join her. Sighing Steve took out his Stark Tech phone and dialed the genius billionaire in question.

"Well if it isn't the Captain himself," Tony said picking up on the other line, "If I didn't know better I'd say..."

Steve cut him off, "Stark, how long would it take for you to find Banner?"

"That depends has he been a bad boy?" Tony asked teasingly.

"Stark." Steve warned with a slight growl.

"Easy there old man, don't pop a disk, I only meant that it would take me about six seconds to find the Hulk, but Bruce... I'm not sure I can." Tony admitted.

"Well now's the time to try." Steve insisted.

"Why is it a code green?" Tony asked his tone concerned.

"It's worse. Its a code Red." Steve said a little dry humor coloring his voice.

"Ha! Glad I'm not there to deal with that one; woman is scary. Anyway I'll see what I can do. Good luck with your code Red." Tony said.

"I don't need luck, I need Banner. It's the kids that need luck; they're babysitting the full blown Black Widow." Steve said humorlessly.

If Steve was capable of hearing Tony wince through the phone he would swear he had, "Right well I'll get right on that. Let you know what I find out." Steve hung up the phone and waited impatiently.

It was more than 4 hours later when Steve's phone rang again and they were nearing the coordinates that Steve had guessed. Steve answered the phone saying, "Tell me you have him."

"Well I'm not quite sure, but some satellites picked up someone looking a little worse for ware on a completely deserted island. It's too blurry to see, but worst case you become some castaway's night in shining armor. I'm sending the coordinates directly the the jet's main frame; your close."

"Thanks." Steve said and hung up the phone. He was about to tell the young pilot about the change of corse when she squeaked from the cockpit.

"Captain, ummm... autopilot force engaged and is taking us to new coordinates... I'm going to need the over ride code..."

"Leave it. Tony's taking us where we need to go." Steve insisted straightening his tight black t-shirt and making sure his shoes were properly tied. It was a pretty pathetic as far as a suit and weapons check went, but he hadn't even stopped for his shield much less his suit.

The jet landed on the edge of the sandy beach and Steve stepped out into the bright sunshine. He looked around and decided that heading into the tropical forest was his best bet, but he stopped short of the tree line as Bruce stepped out. His hair was long and unkept as was his beard and his pants were even worse for wear then the Hulk usually left them. One lens of the glasses he kept on him at all times was cracked and he was thinner then Steve had remembered.

"I'm not coming back." Bruce said simply his voice rough and gravely from lack of use, "I can't..."

"I'm not asking the Hulk to come back. We need you. She needs you." Steve said.

"Don't you see, I can't. I can't just leave him on this island and go back without him. I can't go back to the city, I'm too much of a risk to everyone. I can't do that anymore. I'm sorry." Bruce all but pleaded.

"Ya well you know better than any of us except maybe Furry and Barton that you're not the only dangerous one and right now you're a hell of a lot more stable than she is." Steve argued.

Bruce knew who "she" was, how could he not. He thought about her every day, the feel of her when she had kissed him, how she had said she adored him, how much calmer the Hulk was around her, but that didn't change anything. "We lost her Bruce... we lost Natasha." Steve admitted face downcast as he looked down at the sand.

Bruce's throat closed off and he choked out, "What do you mean lost?" his eyes wide with fear.

"Natasha's gone, all that's left is the Widow." Steve said and Banner flinched not missing the double meaning in his words. "She was ok at first, being strong, you know how she is... She's been helping me train the new Avengers and she was ok, then one day she lost it on Sam and Wanda had to pull her off. She went and beat up a punching bag for about three hours and didn't talk to anyone the rest of the night. We all figured she was just adjusting and she would get over it and it would get better, but it only got worse. Before long she would ignore the world and go beat up a bag at least once a week sometimes for seven or eight hours, so we brought Barton in when she wouldn't talk to me or Hill. She kicked the shit out of him, broke three of his ribs, and with the new baby and all we forced him to go home. She was still clinging onto some part of our Natasha though... until today." Steve explained walking up to where Bruce had sunk to his knees in the sand his hands covering his face.

Crouching down beside him Steve shoved the tablet under Bruce's nose showing him footage from the cameras in the training room. Her walking into the gym at 3am looking more like the Widow then either of them had seen her before, a montage of her punching the bag with time stamps ranging from 3am to 8pm and then a close up as Steve got in her way and she kept punching him like he was the bag. Bruce was gripping the tablet himself now his hands shaking as she said, "I am Natalia Romanova; I am the Black Widow; I am invincible." video Steve pinned her and then the new Avengers took over. Steve tapped on another tab and the live streaming video showed Falcon and Vision holding her in the air as she screamed and fought them. Wanda was pale and curled up on one of the mats taking a rest as Rhodey stood underneath ready to catch her should she get free of the two men.

"The Avengers may not need you any more Dr. Banner, but she does and the Avengers need her. I will not let her go on living the rest of her life as the Black Widow, it's not what Natasha would have wanted, and if you won't come and fix her then we aren't left with many choices are we?" Steve explained.

Bruce's eyes flashed green at the threat to Natasha's life, but the sound of her outraged screams tore through his mind like shrapnel and before he knew what he was doing he was nodding and allowing Steve to lead him to the quinjet.

When the jet landed in the hanger at the new Avenger's base Bruce looked around impressed. "No civilians for miles and everything in here is built like a nuclear bunker so it's not as fragile as our last hideout." Steve explained, "I'll take you to get cleaned up and sort your self out and I'll have the trainees bring Natasha to her room; I'll take you there once you're ready." and with that Steve left him. Now that he was here Bruce wanted nothing more than to be by Natasha's side and try to bring her back to reality, but Steve was right, he needed some cleaning up. He showered, soaping up twice, cut his hair, shaved, and replaced his clothing and glasses with the ones that had been left for him. He was slipping on his shoes when Steve nocked on the door.

"Come in." Bruce said tying his last lace.

"We got her moved, Wanda is with her now; she's been calming her down with her metal manipulation, but it doesn't last long once she's gone. Think you can handle her loosing her shit on you without going green?" Steve asked.

"I have to." Bruce said determinedly gesturing for Steve to lead the way.

They followed the hallways for bit before Steve hesitated before a door marked "N. Romanoff". Bruce pushed past him and opened the door to the scene that awaited him on the other side.

Natasha was laying neatly on the bed, more like she was about to go into a body bag then sleeping the way she was so stiffly arranged. Beside her sat a very pale sweating Scarlet Witch her eyes snapping open to look at Bruce as he opened the door.

Bruce walked over to the edge of the bed placing a hand on Wanda's shoulder and smiling down at her kindly, "Thank you for helping her. Go now, sleep, rest." He insisted helping her out of the chair she had positioned by the bed. Steve and Wanda left them as Bruce looked down at the woman before him with so many emotions even he would need to meditate on them for a week or more, but among them he was sure was fear, guilt, and compassion. Bruce sat on the edge of the bed and cautiously, as though he were afraid he was not allowed to touch, ran a hand over her hair. When nothing happened he repeated the action gazing down at her and waiting for her to awaken.

It was not long before her eyes snapped open and she seized his arm, but just moments before she spun to snap it she caught sight of him and froze. Bruce pried his arm out of her grasp and put his palms on either side of her face murmuring, "Natasha, can you hear me?"

She didn't move; she didn't speak, but for the first time in far too long she was actually seeing what was in front of her. Something inside her cracked, between seeing him, feeling his hands on her face, hearing his voice, hell even smelling his scent washed out though it was by the soap. She couldn't tell herself he wasn't real because even in her altered state of mind she knew he was. Exhaustion took over her and Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow collapsed back onto the bed, her head falling through Bruce's hands and her blood red lips parting slightly as her eyes rolled back into her head.


	2. Chapter 2

When next Natasha woke there was music playing softly behind her and a soft snoring to her right. He felt like she had been run over by a car... twice. Suddenly Natasha realized that the music she was listening to was the music Bruce played when he was recovering from a "code green" it made her heart freeze and burn all at the same time. She turned to turn off the music and stopped short at the sight of the man who's curly dark hair was less than an inch from brushing her elbow. "Bruce." She murmured unintentionally.

Bruce sat up quickly torn from sleep by hearing his name called. He blinked his large brown eyes and straightened his glasses gazing across at Natasha. "Hey Natasha, you ok?" He asked what a man was to say to the woman he had driven insane by his mere absence.

Her surprised face became hard as she glared down at him saying, "I'm fine. What are you doing here?"

"Steve found me; he said you needed me here so I came." Bruce said reaching out slowly with one hand to touch her only to have it slapped away by the furious redhead.

"I didn't ask Steve to get you and I don't need you. In fact I've been better than I have been in a long time. Just me and the training and the missions; how it was meant to be." Natasha insisted coldly.

"No Natasha, that's not who you were meant to be, that's who the Black Widow was meant to be and you were never meant to be her." Bruce almost pleaded with her.

"But she is me. She has been me since the day I graduated; I have nothing else and they made sure I never would. It doesn't matter who I would have been if my parents hadn't died and I hadn't been forced into the Red Room because it happened and pretending it didn't and trying to live like some hero won't make it any better." Natasha said her eyes growing steadily harder and colder as she spoke.

Bruce reached for her again, but she leapt from the bed pushing him away from her. Bruce followed hesitantly behind her as she made her way across the room saying, "Natasha, the world still needs you."

"They have me, just a better version of me."

"No, not the Black Widow you Natasha."

"I am the Natasha!" The Black Widow yelled at him whirling to face him her hand itching towards his throat.

"No, you're not." Bruce insisted staying as still and calm as possible, "She is a part of you, but she doesn't control you. The world needs the Natasha that teases me over a bar in a pretty dress, the one that kisses me then pushes me off a ledge to bring out the bit guy; the world needs "Aunt Nat" that smiles and laughs at Clint's kids' jokes. The Black Widow is only capable of bringing more death and destruction into this world and we need our hero back." Bruce half insisted half begged. Bruce looked down into her eyes and saw a cold hard nothing reflecting back at him changing tactics he said, "I'm not asking you. I'm telling you, and if that doesn't mean anything to you then I'll let the Big Guy do it. How much do you want to bet only Natasha can make the lullaby work?" Bruce threatened. The redhead glared back at him as he said, "Now go take a shower and don't come out of there until you remember what normal makeup is." Bruce said in the most commanding tone he could muster.

She flipped him off but made her way into the bathroom none the less. "JARVIS, could you please get Steve and Wanda in here?" Bruce asked.

It was a few moments later before the pair arrived in Natasha's room looking around expectantly. "She's showering." Bruce said as a manner of explanation. "Wanda could you please keep an eye on her for a bit? Calm her down if she needs it and try to get her to dress and look like her old self? Maybe help her cut her hair back short and get her looking like Natasha again. No more dark makeup or any of that, just the old Natasha." Wanda nodded and took the chair by the bed to wait.

Bruce took Steve's elbow and lead him out of the room closing the door behind him, "Assemble to old team." Bruce said seriously, "Make a clearing in the woods somewhere where he can't hurt anyone. We have a code green." Steve looked at him cautiously so Bruce explained, "Talking isn't working. The Black Widow won't be able to calm the Big Guy down; she'll have to become Natasha again, but I need all of you to keep him from hurting her. Just keep redirecting him towards Natasha and eventually she'll have to come back to us." Bruce explained his theory.

Steve was nodding and sent a voice command through his tablet to Maria before asking, "How did you get her to get cleaned up and all?" Steve asked.

"I threatened her with the Big Guy..." Bruce said a little sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Steve's tablet lit up and he said, "Iron man is on the way, Clint's still got broken ribs and his wife isn't letting him come, probably best, Marie's trying to contact Thor, but that can take anywhere from seconds to years so we'll see."

"Can you and Tony handle him?" Bruce asked skeptically.

Steve looked uncomfortable at the idea, but said, "I'm sure Vision and Iron Patriot would be willing to help, that should be plenty." and Bruce nodded his agreement.

"What about the clearing?" Bruce asked.

"There's already one about two miles out with a good rover trail out to it. We were testing Scarlet Witch's power; managed to flatten a good quarter mile circle." Bruce raised his eyebrows impressed but nodded.

"How long before Tony gets here?" Bruce asked.

"I don't think it matters..." Steve admitted looking at a very pissed off, but normal looking Natasha glaring at them from the doorway. Steve dashed off down the hallway yelling at his tablet for his team to suit up and ready the rover.

Bruce looked over Natasha's shoulder to see Wanda knocked out on the floor. "What did you do to her?" Bruce demanded.

"She keeps fucking with my head so I took her out." Natasha said with a shrug, "I've had my head fucked with enough over the years I really don't need it from her."

"Did you killer her?" Bruce asked starting to get angry now.

Natasha shrugged again and Bruce pushed past her to check on Wanda's strong pulse. Lifting her onto the bed Bruce ran after Natasha grabbing her up and running to where the car would be waiting. She flipped out of his arms and slammed him against the wall, but his eyes were starting to go green and even the Black Widow knew she was no match for the Big Guy. Bruce could feel himself loosing control so he grabbed Natasha by the back of her shirt and dragged her out the front door throwing her at the team where they waited with the truck before dashing off into the direction that Steve pointed.

Bruce ran for the clearing holding himself together the best that he could until he and Natasha were both safely away from the rest of the compound. He made it to the clearing a couple of minutes before the others and worked on calming himself down the best he could. The truck pulled up and Steve shoved Natasha out into the clearing where Bruce waited.

"Alright fine Natasha, I warned you. If you won't come back yourself, you get the Big Guy." Bruce said and his eyes blazed green as he began to transform.


	3. Chapter 3

The Black Widow froze in shock as Bruce turned into the Hulk. He roared at the sky at large before looking around and seeing her. He stopped and smiled at her with his large brick, his expression a little to manic to be comforting, but as Steve would later insist, it looked like he was happy to see her. He moved forward hand outstretched and she drew her gun and fired before anyone even knew she had it with her. The bullets bounced off Hulk's hard hide, but he didn't roar or charge at her he shrunk back looking almost hurt and betrayed. He made an odd guttural sounding whimper and held his hands up to protect his face trying to gaze at the woman in front of him from between the gaps in his fingers. Hulk huffed and howled until she had to stop to reload then he lowered his hands and looked at her with big sad green eyes curled in upon himself on the forest floor.

She raised her gun to shoot again, but her hands shook as she pointed the pistol at his sad betrayed face. Hulk snorted like a scared horse and flinched back from her when she gripped the trigger guard harder making the metal of the gun click slightly. "Come on big guy, its gettin' dark out." The Black Widow said her voice filled with controlled fear and rage.

The Hulk roared at the mockery of his lullaby and charged the Black Widow knocking her to the ground with his large head and crouching over her. The team flinched and made to move to her rescue, but the Hulk wasn't physically touching her now that he had her pinned so Steve held them back.

The Hulk roared in her face over and over and over again. At first the Black Widow fought to get up only to meet with the Hulk above her, but slowly she stilled laying her head back on the grass and just looked up at him as if she were studying him. Slowly her hand crept forward palm towards him as if she meant to stroke his face. He quieted as he watched her not moving from his position, but not roaring at her anymore. Something about her had changed, her face wasn't as hard, her eyes weren't as dead and cold.

"I'm sorry I hurt you Big Guy." Natasha said softly still reaching for him.

Hulk shook his head and pounded his chest with one hand as if to show that he was strong and she could not hurt him.

"No, I know, not the bullets. I broke your trust. I betrayed you. I hurt you inside and I'm sorry."

Hulk looked down at his chest where her fingers were just long enough to brush the skin over his heart. He sat back from her and studied it turning his head this way and that as if trying to see some physical wound she had left behind.

Natasha stood up carefully and stepped forward slowly as the Hulk watched her. She held her hand out to him and gazed up at him as he began to slowly reach forward. The Hulk touched the tips of her fingers with one of this massive hands and then gently brushed the side of he head with one thick finger. "I'm glad you're back Big Guy." Natasha said soothingly, "but now I need to apologize to Bruce." She admitted.

Hulk huffed, the air blowing her hair back a bit, but he sat down on the clearing floor and gently reaching forward picked her up and cradled her too him her entire body shorter than one of his large green arms. Natasha felt relaxed and safe despite the great power of the being holding her; he didn't want to hurt her, he wanted comfort from the hurt she had caused him. Softly she soothed her hand down his large arm trying to stroke more than pet him. The Hulk was still for several moments before putting her down in front of him and taking a couple steps back beginning to shrink.

Natasha took in her surroundings as Bruce regained his form. Seeing Steve and the team she waved them off with a smile of thanks to Steve and the team left the pair in peace. Bruce was fully himself lying on the ground shirtless and week, but he had enough presence still to recognize the feel of soft fingers stroking though his hair. Groaning Bruce rolled over enough to see her face. Her hair was tossed like she had just had a fight and there were bullet shells on the ground around him, but she didn't seem to be injured. "Did he hurt you?" Bruce rasped out.

"Shhh" Natasha shushed him lifting his head to slide her legs under pillowing his head on her lap, "Did I ever mention I adore you?" she asked smiling down at him.

Bruce smiled weakly back up at her and said, "I think I might have heard that somewhere, but I was after all falling down a well so I'm not really sure." Natasha had the decency to turn a little pink at the reminder of her behavior, but Bruce continued, "Seriously though, what did he do to you?" concern evident in his voice.

Natasha smiled and went back to stroking his hair softly saying, "Well, I shot at him," Bruce flinched, "Emptied two clips at him before I had to go for another one. He just curled up and covered his face looking at me like I had killed his puppy." Bruce's face was now confused, "I hesitated. That look in his eyes... He was so sad... but I got cocky and I couldn't get the lullaby quite right and it probably didn't sound much like me anyway with a gun pointed at his face. That made him angry and he knocked me down and roared at me until I came to my senses. Then we talked and he picked me up and held me fore a bit, just for the comfort of it I think, and then I asked for you, no lullaby, I just said I needed you, and he gave you to me." Natasha informed him.

Bruce was looking up at her in a mix of confusion and wonder and said breathlessly, "You've tamed the beast."

Natasha laughed and said, "And your beast tamed mine so we're even."

"I'm sorry I had to go all green on you, I couldn't seem to get through to you." Bruce apologized.

Natasha just shook her head saying, "Thank you, I needed it. Sometimes its just easier to fall back into not caring, especially when things get tough emotionally. I don't do emotional well."

Now it was Bruce's turn to laugh as he said, "Neither do I."

Natasha laughed and said, "Come on, let's get you back and get you cleaned up."

Bruce hesitated and Natasha stopped looking at him expectantly. Blushing slightly Bruce said, "Natasha... could I just..." He reached his hand up towards her face and Natasha smiled talking his hand in hers and placing it on her cheek closing her eyes and leaning into the touch she had been trying so hard to forget she had forgotten herself along with it.

"Come on," she said after a few moments helping to push him into a sitting position, "There will be plenty of time for that later... you are staying right?"

Bruce dragged himself up chuckling and saying, "Don't have much of a choice do I?"

"We could go somewhere else." She offered.

"So what? We just disappear?" he said mimicking her every time before when he had suggested the run away from this madness together. Bruce stepped closer to her and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers without any hesitation this time, "No Tasha, Steve needs you here, the new Avengers need you here, the world needs you here. We'll stay. I'm sure they have an extra lab somewhere for the famous Bruce Banner." He chuckled, "but I think the Hulk's work for the Avengers is done. I can't do it anymore Tasha, but they're a good team, they'll have your back, maybe not as well as the Big Guy would, but you're not done saving the world yet and I'm an old man. Come on. Lets get inside, it's starting to get dark and I've been dying for a nice soft mattress."

Natasha couldn't stop smiling her small pleased smile as she wrapped Bruce in her arms hugging herself to his chest and felt his arms wrap around her too. "Thank you." she murmured against his chest, "For everything, but don't ever pull that kind of shit on me again you big dork." she said bopping him on the back of the head and making him chuckle and hug her harder.


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce woke fully several hours later in the room that he had cleaned up in when he first arrived. He sat up and pulled on his glasses before getting up and putting on a proper shirt and a pair of undamaged pants before running his fingers through his unruly hair. There was a knock at his door, but before he could give the person on the other side permission to enter Natasha was standing in his open doorway. Bruce raised an eyebrow at her timely arrival and she smiled at him saying, "I had JARVIS tell me when you woke up."

"So you were spying on me?" Bruce teased good-naturedly.

"Bruce Banner if I were spying on you I would be interested in much more then what time you woke up and you would never even know it." Natasha said in the sultry voice she used when she was flirting with him.

Bruce turned a little pink around the edges, but just laughed her comment off saying, "So what were you interested in at... three twenty seven in the morning?"

"I just wanted to check in on you."

He looked Natasha up and down and noticed she was wrapped in a think black robe that stopped mid thigh and showed enough of her figure to get his blood-pressure a little up, "That's all you wanted hu?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

Natasha smiled at him and slowly came into the room shutting the door behind her before making her way over to Bruce with a little more hip movement then was strictly necessary. She was almost on top of his frozen form when she said, "I found it's better to cover up when I got out of my room at night. Keeps all those young boys from getting nosebleeds and forgetting their jobs." She reached down for the lapels of her robe and Bruce's eyes followed her hands down as she played with the edge of the robe before swiftly pulling the open edges together to better hide her exposed bust and turning away from him, traipsed over and took a seat on the edge of the bed saying, "Wouldn't you agree Doctor?"

Bruce swallowed hard still frozen in his place half way around the room and said, "Well if one of them ever does get a nose bleed from staring at you too hard just send them to me. You know, since I'm a doctor and all." He joked finally relaxed enough to move.

"My hero" she joked batting her eyelashes at him and earning herself a bright smile and huff of amusement from the older man, "But seriously," she continued, "How are you?"

"Me?" Bruce scoffed, "How are you?" he asked coming to sit on the chair turning it to face the bed so that he was looking at her.

He watched as several emotions passed across her usually stony face, but finally she said, "Ive been better, but I've also been much much worse."

"Anything I can do?" Bruce asked.

Natasha scoffed, "You mean apart from give up your life to stay with me in a place you don't want to be so that I don't go crazy? No I think you've covered it Doc."

"Tasha," Bruce said his tone so sincere she had no choice but to look him in the eyes, "You are giving me a life not taking it away. I was living on a deserted island eating anything that didn't move of its own accord that I could get my hands on and boiling salt water to get drinking water. I didn't have a life anymore so I chose not to live one. Here I have my research, a place to live around people who don't hate me, but most importantly I have you. I know that the Other Guy isn't as much of a danger because I know that he listens to you and I know that even if all of this falls to shit just like shield did I'd still have someone to run away with. You're no more crazy than I am; I ran away physically and you ran away mentally. At least you tried." He said head falling to look at his knees.

Natasha rose from the bed walking over and hugging Bruce's downcast head to her stomach laying her own head on top of his. Bruce's hands found her hips as he held her to him and she said, "Neither one of us handled it well, but we both did the best we knew how. Now it's time to learn a new way of handling things." Bruce nodded into her stomach hugging her to him.

Kissing the top of his head Natasha took a step back and said softly, "Goodnight Bruce." before leaving him to his evening. "Oh and Bruce," She said looking back at him from his doorway, "You aren't old until I say you can be." She said with a smile and a wink before shutting the door behind her leaving a chuckling Bruce sitting beside his desk.

Five am came earlier then Natasha would have liked, but she was up and in the training room waiting for the recruits even before Steve. Steve gave her a welcoming smile and stood by her as they waited for the recruits. By 05:30 they were all collected in front of them even Wanda although she still looked a little pale and she winced when she moved her head to suddenly as if it was paining her. "Good morning Recruits. Now that the Hulk has managed to put me back in my right mind, it's time to get to work." Natasha pointing to the boxing ring for hand to hand combat fighting training.

"Not even a thank you" Sam grumbled.

"Sam, you're up first." Natasha commanded and Sam climbed into the ring sulkily.

"Who am I fighting?" He asked looking around at the other recruits curiously.

"Me." Natasha's said and Sam's eyes bulged.

Dr. Banner made his way down to the seventh floor on Director Furry's orders and started looking around. The entire floor was one floor after another some of which were so new they didn't even have projects yet. Hill was waiting for him in the middle of the hallway and he came to join her. "There are 28 labs down here. Eric has control of five of them right now and Jane has another two. That leaves 21 labs open. This," she said gesturing into a decent sized empty lab, "Is your private lab." Flipping a switch on the inside of the wall they glass turned a dark reflective black and Hill said, "It's Vibranium infused glass. You can do just about anything in here without effecting anyone else. It been tested for full nuclear shielding as well so have at it. The other labs aren't so well protected, but the shielding is military grade and the windows can go dark in all of them. Anything yo need we can get from Stark or have specially made by our scientific engineering department. Anything you need run off of electricity will pull from a bank of reactors; it's pretty much endless. Just take a list of anything you need to Eric he will have it made and delivered. In addition there isn't anyone currently allowed to open this room but you me and Dr. Furry, nor is anyone else connected to the cameras and coms in here, but add who you like and you can have constant contact with them if you need to... even over mission coms." She said and Bruce nodded grateful for the opportunity to watch over Natasha from his own private safe room when she was on missions.

"So what about the other rooms?" Bruce asked.

"Well like I said just tell Eric what you need; equipment, supplies, staff, it' all at your command. There are plenty of labs left, open as many projects as you need." Maria said with a shrug.

Bruce bowed his head in thought over what projects needed to be done and what it would take to start another group working on finishing them and looked up to find Maria gone.

By the time Bruce made it to Eric's lab with his list it was late and the older man was cleaning up to leave. Bruce knocked on the open door sheepishly.

"Oh Dr. Banner welcome, welcome. I was so glad to hear you came back to help out the Avengers here in the labs." Eric said beaming at him.

Bruce smiled and said, "Yes it was... unexpected. Hill said I should bring anything I need to you." Bruce said with a shy smile.

"Of course. That is part of my job as the research director here. What do you have for me?"

"A list of things I'm going to need for my personal lab and a proposal for three more labs, although I'd like to wait to meet my staff before I order the equipment for those, but the research details are here." Bruce said holding out a handful of papers.

Eric took them and adjusted his glasses before looking at the first one saying, "Let's see... Micro-biomechanical repair bots..." Eric screwed up his eyes trying to decipher the drawings farther down.

"They're basically tiny robotic disks that we can put in the suits to help repair damaged tissue. They would be able to travel small distances and use the new medical technology that we already have to grow new tissue. They may still require medical attention when they return, but it would keep them from bleeding out. The aren't all pumped up with super serum or Vibranium." Bruce explained.

Eric smiled at him and said, "Nor are they all demi-gods. You're right." Flipping to the next page he began nodding knowingly, "This is about what Thor said with there being other stones. It will use emission readings from Vision's stone to create a tracking device of sorts for the other stones."

"Exactly. I think it's putting off particles we haven't yet classified and that's what the next project is about. Of course both of those would take Vision's participation in some part so it will be up to him in the end." Bruce explained.

Eric nodded, "I'll work on that. Where is the schematic for your private lab?"

"I was hoping to keep the research in my private lab... well private." Bruce said sheepishly.

Eric looked at him knowingly, but didn't question him saying, "Well I can get you most of these materials by the end of the week and I should be able to push through the paperwork on these other labs in a couple of days, but some of these biological specimen are very rare and dangerous. They will take more time..." Eric put the pages on the desk beside him and looked at Bruce with a look of reproach and pity. "Bruce," he said "a black mamba? That's known to be one of the most dangerous snakes on the face of the earth." Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. "It's venom deadens the nerves and can stop an man's heart. I know better then to think you're making biochemical weapons Bruce, you don't know what something like this would make the Other Guy do." Eric said almost chastising the bigger man.

Bruce shook his head refusing to look at Eric, "Hopefully I'll have a good 30-45 minutes before I have to find out."

"Maybe if you inject it into your left arm and let it creep up to your hear." Eric said incredulously, "That would keep your heart slow for a little while before it stopped it entirely and what's to stop the Other Guy from coming out before then and burning it off in a heartbeat?"

"Mutual desire. Can I get the list?" Bruce asked ending the debate.

Eric hesitated but nodded, "Im going to have to go through Captain, Natasha, and Fury to get the snakes in though." Eric warned him.

"Can we skip the first two and just go to Fury?" Bruce asked.

Eric paused, but nodded again and said, "We can, but I can't promise he won't go to them himself. He doesn't run this place, they do."

Bruce nodded and thanked the older doctor hoping that Fury would understand why he didn't want Tasha to know what he was trying to do.


	5. Chapter 5

Bruce was in a state of relief when his item request sheet came back with Fury's stamp of approval on it. Tasha never mentioned anything about it to him and he never said anything about his personal research telling her about his other projects whenever she asked. Things between him and Natasha were steadily improving and by the time his dangerous package arrived almost a week later they were pretty much back to where they had been before he had left. Bruce was busy flipping through resumes for lab techs and project leaders when the young man who worked the front desk of the research level called through into his office. "Uhhh, Dr. Banner..." The kid said sounding scared out of his pants, "Package for you."

By the kid's tone Bruce figured they hadn't been as conspicuous as he had hoped in transporting the snake, "Have JARVIS lead the transport back to my private lab please" Bruce instructed activating the doors to let the transport into his lab. The kid squeaked in conformation and it was only moments later that Dr. Banner understood the heart-stopping terror that the kid was feeling.

The Black Widow in her full kevlar cat suit, dark makeup and bright red lips stood in the doorway to Bruce's lab her zipper a little farther down on her bust then normal with a seven foot long dusky green snake wrapped around her arms and shoulders it's inky black mouth open and hissing its threat.

"Natasha" Bruce said cautiously holding both of his hands up in front of him and backing away from her slowly until his desk blocked his way.

"What Bruce?" The Black Widow asked pouting at him and stalked towards him cornering him against his desk. "I thought you wanted to play with danger." She purred stoking the back of her hand against the lithe snake, hide. She licked her lips seductively and purred, "I want to experiment too Doctor."

"Natasha, put the snake down." Bruce choked out swallowing hard and leaning away from the woman who was sandwiching herself between his thigh.

Natasha sighed her Black Widow persona melting away as she walked calmly over the the enclosure he had set up for the black mamba and lowered the giant specimen in. Closing the lid of the enclosure and turning to lean against the tank Natasha said, "Relax Doc he's sweet. You know as well as I he is hand bred and fed for easier handling."

"That doesn't mean he's not dangerous Natasha." Bruce argued angered at the risk she had put herself at.

"Exactly." Natasha said glaring him down, "Care to explain or should I wait for Fury to do that to?"

"So he told you hu?" Bruce said avoiding eye contact and rubbing the back of his neck.

"Bruce Banner I am debatably the second best spy of the century second only to Nick Fury himself and somehow you thought you were going to keep your little private research lab a secret from me?" Natasha asked sarcastically, "Fury called me from training the minute Eric closed the door to his office."

"You knew for a week and you never said anything?" Bruce asked a little surprised.

Natasha shrugged, "This is a better expression of my emotions on the matter then asking you about it quietly over dinner. You're scaring the shit out of me Banner and I don't scare easy."

"I'm scaring you? I have the Other Guy. That thing could have killed you." Bruce argued standing up straight and confronting her.

"Like it would take you more than 10 minutes to make me an anti-venom. You would never let me dye from something as stupid as a snake bite." Natasha scoffed.

Bruce's anger was put out like a match in water by her obvious trust in him; trust that he hadn't shown her. "I just wanted to experiment with being able to hold off the transformation for a little bit. Black mamba venom blocks nerves and slows down the heart rate. I was hoping it would at least give me a little time." Bruce admitted avoiding her gaze.

Stepping up to him Natasha cupped his face in her hands forcing him to look at her and asked, "Time for what Bruce?"

Bruce looked down at the young, beautiful woman in front of him and his expression became both sad and determined as he leaned down and kissed her. He kissed her as sweetly and as passionately as he dared cradling her face in his hands as her soft lips responded to his and her body melted closer to his.

Natasha was the one who broke the kiss softly keeping his face between her hands so she could inspect his large brown eyes behind his slightly ascu glasses. "Bruce, I spent half my life using my body to get information and kill people, but I can't remember a time when I actually wanted to be kissed... until you. I don't need all that. I used all of that the wrong way so many times that I could be perfectly happy never going there again. What I want now is to be a child; to be in love. To have someone to care for and some one there to care for me. That's all I need Bruce, and that doesn't mean we can't be physically compassionate as well, for one I'd very much like another one of those kisses, but we don't have to push it. If one day we get there great, but if we do it's going to be because you and he have come into balance not because you injected yourself with five hundred times the lethal dose of black mamba venom." She said stoking his cheeks with her fingers softly as she spoke to him her green eyes glued to his brown.

"It would probably need to be something along the lines of 600 times the LD50, but with beta receptor blockers in there to give me some more..." Bruce explained, but was cut off by Natasha's lips.

"Dork" She said pulling back to smile at him before claiming his lips again.

Whens she finally decided to leave him to his other, non-Hulk related work some time later she stepped back over to the tank and said, "Since you're not going to use him in your research can we keep him upstairs with us? He's beautiful."

Bruce smiled at her but shook his head, "Approval voucher specifically says he has to stay in this room. Besides I was thinking I might still study him and do some experiments with his venom for purely human medical purposes. He is an endemic in Africa." Bruce said sheepishly.

Natasha eyed him suspiciously and warned, "World's second best spy..." pointing to herself.

Bruce just chuckled and said, "I'm sure Clint is hurt to the core. Come here." He said waiving him over to the computer banks as he began entering a complicated series of security protocol passwords and overrides.

"Clint's the world's best assassin, he doesn't get both." she said defensively, "Lucky for me Fury is getting old." she said with a wink.

Bruce chuckled and stepped back to show the various DNA scan displays the computers had pulled up. "Go on." He said gesturing for her to let the computers scan her eye, hand, face and take a strand of her hair. Natasha stepped forward cautiously allowing the computers to store her information before turning to give Bruce a confused look. "Now it doesn't matter whether you're the world's best spy or the world's worst you can get in any time you want whether I'm here or not." Bruce informed her with a small trusting smile adding, "But I am making a batch of anti-venom to keep in here."

Natasha laughed and kissed him knowing how much it meant to be given open access to Bruce's lab.

"Oh and by the way," She said stoping on her way out his door to poke her head back in and say, "Someone probably needs to get that kid in the front a new pair of pants. A week bladder is one thing, but he's starting to make the whole place smell." Bruce gave her a knowing grin as she left his sight.


	6. Chapter 6

Bruce and Natasha established some what of a routine over the next two weeks. Natasha would walk up in her room around four o'clock for some personal training time, meet with the team at five thirty for their morning run and work out, knock on Bruce's door at nine for breakfast. They would eat together before both going their separate ways, Bruce to the labs and Natasha to the training center. They both usually missed lunch, but sometimes Natasha would surprise Bruce with food in his personal lab if she was free of her training duties and the pair always took an evening break together from six to nine before the pair said their goodnights and Bruce went back to his room or lab and Natasha went to bed. Sometimes others joined them, enjoying their company and friendship and sometimes it was just the two of them.

Their routine was becoming comfortable when Steve burst into one of the common areas Bruce and Natasha frequented on their evenings alone, "Natasha we're needed." He said and Natasha bolted upright from her position on the couch with Bruce. Bruce paused the movie, but Natasha was already half way out the door. Following at a slower pace he made his way down to the prep room where all the Avenger's suits and weapons were kept, but he stopped short as he heard strained voices in the hallway.

"Natasha we need him." Steve was saying angrily, "This is going to be a hell of a fight and the recruits aren't ready for this. We need a team that knows how to work together. We can't do this alone Natasha, but people could get killed if we let them come along. At least with Banner we would stand a chance without them." Steve argued.

"I said no and that's final." Natasha growled "He said he's done so he's done and I'm not going to let you bully him into coming back. Bring it up again and we leave; both of us." Natasha said glaring down the larger man.

With a huff Steve walked off commanding the new team to suit up. Natasha waited and said, "Care to walk me to my door?" in the same flirty tone she had used at Tony's party, "Wouldn't want some mean old man attacking me along the way would you?"

Bruce stepped around the corner and asked, "Did you really mean it? About leaving if he asked me to fight?"

Natasha kissed his temple, "In a heartbeat." She said pulling him along behind her.

Natasha pulled him into the central area before ducking into her personal changing room and stripping down to pull on her cat suit. Now decent she opened the door and waved him in closing it behind her.

"I'll be on coms." He said watching her file away a plethora of weaponry.

"No matter how bad it gets promise me you won't go in. Not into battle anyway. I didn't fight down Captain America for nothing; I meant what I said."

"Won't." Bruce choked out his chest feeling a little tight.

Natasha finished preparing and turned to look at him. "Bruce, I'll be fine." She promised, "Besides, this'll be fun." she said with a smile.

"Right, fun..." He said sarcastically, "Be careful." he all but begged.

"Always am Doc." She said and kissed him quickly before filling out to see the team already waiting. Bruce looked uncomfortably around the group as Natasha ignored their knowing stares.

"Are we going or what?" Natasha asked leading the way out to the jet and grabbing a com on her way out with a wink to Bruce. Steve raised an eyebrow at the doctor, but followed his teammate out none the less.

"I can't hold them forever Cap." Natasha said shocking two more Hydra grunts with her Widow's bites while simultaneously kicking the teeth out of another.

"Two more behind you Tasha." Bruce warned his voice calm but his knuckles where white as he gripped the edge of his desk.

"Thanks Doc." She said launching herself at them and bringing them down.

"Lab secure." Vision said over the coms.

"Good keep it that way." Cap said blocking another flurry of bullets with his shield.

"Two more weapons turrets left." Falcon said, "I'll take the left if you got the right Rhodes." He directed and Rhodey agreed.

"Something is wrong." Vision said confused, "There is a beeping."

"Get out of there!" Bruce, Natasha, and Steve all yelled seconds before the tower blew.

Iron Patriot was knocked to the ground, but was able to shake it off, Falcon who was a little closer lay groaning on the ground as his com squealed loudly in his temporarily deafened ears. Vision was blasted backwards through two walls, but his Vibranium infused cells held up better than human ones would have. He was in pain and disoriented, but he was able to fly unstably out of the shattered tower.

"Everyone report." Captain demanded.

"Safe and sound Cap." Nat reported.

"I'm a little banged up, but everything's operational." Rhodes groaned.

"I have cleared the wreckage, but I feel quite odd." Vision said.

"What about Scarlet Witch?" Natasha asked, "She was supposed to be trying to track down the researchers and get inside their heads."

"I'll go find her." Captain America said charging towards the ruble, "Nat go find Sam he got thrown back from the blast. Patriot, Vision, try to get a surrender from the rest of these guards, if they won't you know what to do." He ordered.

"Any pointers on where Sam might have fallen?" Natasha asked Bruce through the coms on their personal link channel.

"Based on the origin and force of the blast and Sam's trajectory prior to the explosion I calculate he would be somewhere about here." He said sending a map down to the mini tablet secured in a pouch at her hip.

"Thanks Dr. Dork" she teased taking off towards the area the blinking dot indicated smiling at hearing his warm chuckle in her ear during the heat of a mission. How far she had come from the lone cold killer she once was.

"I've got Wanda, she's out cold, but she looks uninjured. I'm taking her back to the jet. How is the roundup going?" Captain asked.

"Just rounding up a few stragglers." Rhodey reported.

"I've already sent for a transport to bring them back here." Marie said over the coms.

"Good. Any luck with Sam?" Steve asked.

"Doc was able to get me an approximate location, I'm headed there now." Natasha huffed while she ran.

"How?" Steve asked surprised.

"I calculated the..." Bruce began to explain, but Natasha cut him off.

"Physics Cap. It's like science and math had a bastard child with a sick since of humor and a superiority complex." she said.

Bruce huffed, but only said, "Such language out of the mouth of a lady! It simply can not be tolerated can it Cap?"

"Ok, I get it." Steve groaned.

Natasha ran up on a clearing of cracked and broken trees and feared for the worst. Sam was lying in the middle of the rubble his wings mangled and smashed beneath him. His face and hands were burned slightly and he was groaning on the ground holding his chest.

"Guys, I found Sam. It's bad. We're gunna need a medical evac now." Natasha said into her coms.

"Can't breath." Sam gasped pounding on his chest.

"Doc he can't breath right. Looks like a rib broke wrong and punctured his lung."

"He's got a traumatic pneumothorax." Bruce said, "Ok Tasha you have knife."

"I always have a knife. What else do I need?"

"Preferable a sterile tube, but anything that can let air flow out will do."

Taking one of the thirty cal bullet shells off the ground and cut off the closed end with ehr knife she electrified it with her shock rod causing it to heat up and said, "I just heated up a 30 cal bullet casing, that's as sterile as you're gunna get Doc now what."

"Unconventional..." Bruce muttered, "Ok now you need to take the knife and make an incision in between two of his ribs on the infected side. Make it deep enough to cut through the muscle and into the pleura without hitting the lung." Bruce instructed.

"How do I know if I'm deep enough?" She asked.

"Put the tube in and see if air comes out."

"No just a lot of blood and screaming." She yelled through Sam's screams.

"Go deeper."

"There I got it." She said as air whooshed out the bullet casing causing Sam to heave a full breath of air. "He's still critical. Someone tell me that Medical evac is almost here."

"Right behind you Natasha." Rhodey said scooping Sam up into his arms and talking off towards the jet. Natasha scrambled around picking up as many pieces of his flight suit as she could collect.

"Natasha are you ok?" Bruce asked through their private channel.

"Fine Doc just pickin' up the pieces." She said grabbing the last of the suit and starting her jog back to the plane.


	7. Chapter 7

Landing back at base was all a bit of a blur as people rushed in and took Sam to The Cradle. Bruce was waiting at the unloading dock for them despite the hour and was happy to see the rest of the team walking even if some of them looked like they could use a little help and Wanda was actively being supported by Steve. Natasha came off the jet last smiling at him and making the vice around his heart loosen.

"Wanda threw up a barrier to protect herself from the blast, but it took a lot out of her, Sam is bad, but nothing Dr. Cho can't fix in an hour or so. Cap's fine and Rhodey's suit is messed up and he's got a bit of a stiff hip from landing on it hard, but he'll live. I'm not quite sure what's up with Vision, he's a little disoriented, I was hoping you might take a look at him." Natasha summarized, but Bruce was only half listening.

"Her left cheek bone was starting to bruise and her lower lip was a little split. There was dried blood in her hair and dripping down the right side of her face not to mention all of Sam's blood on her hands and suit. Bruce grazed his fingers over her cheek and lip lightly and picked through her hair gently until he found the cut already clotted, "Anything else?" He asked her.

Natasha just smiled softly back at him, "A couple of bruised ribs I bet; they bruise easy."

Bruce just nodded and kissed her forehead leading her into the building after her team. "Go take care of Sam, I'll take Vision to the lab. Once the team is fixed up I'll take a look at that cut in your hairline and clean it up a bit and take a look at those ribs just to make sure they're not broken." He said hugging her gently before letting her go to find Vision.

Vision followed him to his lab unsteadily and Bruce started with a modified version of a field sobriety test asking him to walk a straight line, step from one spot to another four feet away, only he added flight patterns to the mix as well. If Bruce didn't know any better he would say that Vision was in fact drunk.

Steve and Natasha came down the the labs after seeing that Wanda was happily asleep and Sam was almost fully recovered in The Cradle to fund Vision trying to fly straight with his head tilted to the right and making odd drifting loops. "So what's the diagnosis Doc?" Steve asked.

Bruce looked up from his notepad his expression half confused half amused, "Best I can tell he got his bell rung... literally. I think the Vibranium around his cells are literally hitting into each other and causing vibrations that are disturbing the electrical cognitive pathways in certain parts of his brain."

"So how do we... unring him?" Steve asked.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that a bell can't be unrung Cap?" Natasha asked.

"So I am stuck in this state forever over one simple explosion?" Vision asked a note of incredulity in his tone.

"No it should go away on its own over time, although given the high density of his cells it's hard to tell how long. Brain tissue is much more dense then say muscle tissue so I'm not surprised the cognitive aspects are the only that remain." Bruce explained.

"That was no small explosion Vision, I'm not sure any of the rest of us could have survived it, myself included." Cap said with a small shudder.

"Can we speed it up?" Natasha asked.

"In theory if we were to slow the vibration it would lessen the time it would take to stop." Bruce said scratching his head.

"How do we do that?" Vision asked.

"With some extensive research we might be able to create a chamber that could create opposing oscillation patterns..."

"English Doc." Natasha reminded him.

"I might be able to build a machine that could do it instantly, but for now how about an ice bath?" Bruce suggested.

"I understand." Vision said, "By cooling the particles in my body it will lower metabolic rates and lower the energy of the particles thus slowing down their vibrations."

"Exactly." Bruce said with a smile.

"Hey Cap think you could figure out how to put this man on ice?" Natasha teased.

"Ya ya I got him." Steve said with a glare leading Vision out of the room.

Natasha sighed and leaned back against the desk and smiled at Bruce, "We did it." She said, "I was worried. They really weren't ready Cap was right, but they're not going to get ready unless they have something real to train for.

"I'm sorry Tasha, I know it would have gone better if I had been there." Bruce said taking her hand and tugging off one of her blood stained gloves so he could hold it between both of his.

"Bruce, never be sorry for things like that. You don't know what would have happened; for example if you had come the recruits wouldn't have, and between you me and Cap who do you think we would have sent to infiltrate the tower?" Natasha asked and Bruce's eyes grew wide, "Exactly; me. I would have figured it out faster than Vision but the whole floor was loaded with explosives that went off seconds after he touched down. I still would have been blown sky high. This is change, and it's different, but it's not bad. It will have it's ups and its downs, but it will level out in the end." She explained soothing him.

Bruce nodded and held her to him for a second before saying, "Come on Tasha, let's go get you cleaned up and led her up to her room. He pulled the first aid kit out from under her sink where he knew she kept it while she changed out of her suit into shorts and a tank top. Once she opened the door and joined him in the bathroom she sat on the edge of the tub and let him examine the wound on the top of her head.

Taking a handful of warm water Bruce carefully wet her hair on the right side massaging some of the blood out as he separated it to look at the cut. It was shallow and only about an inch and a half long, but it could use a good cleaning none the less so he washed it out and put an antiseptic on it. "Can I see the ribs?" He asked touching the side of her tank top. She lifted it and he saw that her side was in fact turning purple. Touching it gingerly he felt for the telltale give of broken ribs and was pleased when they held. "Not broken, you should be good." He said smiling at her.

"Well don't stop now Doc, it was just getting good." She flirted and he blushed.

"You need a shower, get cleaned up, I'll wait for you." He said standing to leave.

"Another time then." She purred.

"Another time." He promised with a small smile closing the door to the bathroom behind him and settling himself at her desk as the shower turned on.

It wasn't long before the door to the bathroom opened and Natasha wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her followed a plume of steam out into the room where Bruce sat. Bruce held his breath as she grinned at him playfully before letting herself into the walk in closet and shutting the door behind her. Suddenly Bruce could breath again, but his reprieve was short lived as she came out in a black silk nighty that barley came mid thigh. She glided over to her bed and slid under the covers looking up at Bruce through hooded eyes.

Bruce took that as his cue and came to kneel by the edge of her bed. He brushed her hair off of her cheek and said, "Sleep well Tasha."

"Bruce Banner you are not my damn father get under the covers." She demanded.

"Yes Ma'am." He said attempting to bolt under the covers as fast as he could only to be stopped by the woman who had demanded him there.

"Undress."

"But..."

"Now."

"Ok" He said blushing scarlet as his button up hit the ground and tripping out of his jeans. He crawled under the covers stiff as a board only to be seized by warmth. Her skin was still warm from the shower and her hair was slightly damp as she settled herself under his arm, her head pillowed on his chest and her arm flung over him. Her body was pressed against his all the way down to her soft creamy leg which was tangling itself with his. "Tasha" He whispered a little nervous his heat-rate picking up.

"Easy big guy." She said tracing patterns in the thick hair on his chest. "Just relax, we're just going to sleep."

"Easy for you to say." he grumbled.

"Maybe if you pretended like you actually wanted to be close to me it would be easier." She teased.

"I do want to be near you that's the problem." He grumbled but relaxed into her hold wrapping an arm around her waist and settled in for a deep sleep none the less.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Hey guys! I know this is my first AN this story, I really just felt like I wanted to let the movie explain the story and the story to be as seamless of a continuation as I could make it so I hope you don't mind. I wrote this one here today because WOW! You guys are awesome. I am astounded by all the great reviews and how much action this story has gotten; it is really encouraging and I really appreciate you all. I am already going through and editing my manuscript so I can update this story with a more error free version when it is finished, but I figure you would rather have more story than better grammar for right now so I know there are a lot of mistakes and thank you for just taking them in stride. I did want to answer one question that was asked, usually if you ask me a question I will PM you back unless several people ask the same one, but this person left a direct question and wan't logged in when they did so. So in this case I decided to tack it on here. They asked why I am using "Tasha" as a nickname for Natasha even though the movie clearly shows "Nat" as being her established nickname. In this case I did start the story with her as "Nat" or "Natasha", but as the story progresses and Bruce relaxes into his relationship with her I really wanted him to have something with her that set him apart at face value and that became the nickname "Tasha". It was my intent that Bruce as the only one to use that nickname for her to show some level of intimacy, if I have slipped up and let someone else use it somewhere please let me know so that I can fix it in my manuscript and it will be on the next editing update. I know it isn't in the movie, but Bruce never really gets the chance to become comfortable with their relationship in the movie either so I kinda took artistic licenser on this one. Hope that helps! If anyone has more questions please feel free to ask and I will respond to you the best I can. If you have an account please log in before leaving the question so that I may respond right away, if not I will be happy to leave it in an AN. Again thank you guys so much for your support and I love you all. I hope you enjoy! (I love this first scene!)

"Romanoff!" Someone yelled bagging on the door and waking Natasha and Bruce from their sleep. It took Natasha about a second and a half to draw the gun bolted behind the headboard and send three bullets through the door to her room in such a way that it would probably miss whoever was on the other side... Probably.

Natasha pulled Bruce back down shushing him soothingly and curled up on top of him again saying, "I got it go back to sleep hun."

"God damn it Natasha." Steve said kicking in the perforated door, "What if that was Banner outside? He could have taken down half the complex by now." Steve yelled at her sleepy form.

" 'ts not Banner." She mumbled.

"How do you know it wasn't Banner." Steve chastised.

"'ts not Banner." Dr. Banner mumbled and Steve froze in his tracks.

"Ok, so it wasn't Banner..." He mumbled clearly embarrassed at having caught them in bed together. "But what if it had been one of the shield agents?"

"What can I say, I like my men bulletproof." Natasha quipped sitting up with a groan Bruce's curly head appearing over her shoulder a moment later. "What do you want Rogers?" she asked grumpily.

"It's 5:30 time for practice."

"We gave the kids a day off." Natasha reminded him.

"And last I checked we weren't the kids so get your lazy ass up." he demanded.

Natasha drew and cocked the gun again and Steve held up his hands, "Later." She said groggily.

"Fine, but you owe me a round."

"I owe you three," She said pointing at the bullets in the wall behind him, "and you owe me a new door."

"Deal" He said with a nod and left the couple and their wrecked door to their slumber.

"JARVIS," Bruce said sleepily laying back down beside Natasha.

"Yes Master Bruce?"

"Be sure to inform anyone who comes down this way that Natasha is armed and will likely shoot at anyone who wakes her up. We don't need anyone less bulletproof pissing her off."

"Yes Sir." the AI said and Bruce pulled Natasha back to him and settled back down to finish his slumber.

It was well after eight in the morning when Natasha next woke. She groaned at the stiffness in her ribs and buried her face deeper into Bruce's chest. His hand came up sleepily to tangle in her hair and his other arm wrapped around her even tighter. "Morning." He grumbled.

"Hmmm" she agreed.

"Cap's probably pissed at you." Bruce observed remembering the events earlier that morning through a sleep hazed fog.

"Mmmhum." she agreed nodding against him.

"We should get some breakfast in you before you have to go and fight him." Bruce said trailing his fingers through her hair.

"Hmmmm are you cooking?" She asked playing with the hair on his chest again.

"Sure." he said kissing the top of her head.

"Hmmmm well that might be worth getting up for then." She said smiling and kissing him before heaving herself out of bed.

Bruce stood up himself and had his jeans on and buttoned by the time she came back out in a pair of her skin tight stretchy pants and a black... "Is that a corset?"

"Ya," She said heaving on the laces with a groan as her bruised ribs protested, "It's cheaper then ace bandage when you get your ribs banged up as much as I do." She reasoned.

"You know modern medicine says yo shouldn't bandage bruised ribs anymore." Bruce said walking over to her concerned.

"Well I say you should." She said tying off the strings and tucking them in.

"Seriously Natasha, you shouldn't be wearing this." Bruce said putting two fingers in the back of the device to measure its tightness. "You've got it on really tight. It's going to take longer for the bruises to heal like this and you're reducing circulation to your lungs which could cause all sorts of issues." He argued.

"Doc, when was the last time Captain America barrel kicked you in the banged up ribs?" She asked. Bruce had the dignity to look sheepish so she continued, "It keeps the swelling from pushing them out and getting them broken and it just feels better if they aren't constantly contracting and expanding, especially when that contracting involves a star spangled foot to the ribs."

"Ok." Bruce agreed kissing her on the temple and knowing better then to suggest she take a brake from training to heal.

"Thank you." She said running the backs of her fingers up and down his chest and said, "Now are we going to put on shirts or are we going to breakfast like this, because I could be ok with either. "

Bruce smiled and stepped away to retrieve his shirt as Natasha slipped hers on before both headed for the kitchen.

As they were about to turn the corner the pair heard a group of voices around the corner saying, "I heard that Captain America walked in on them doing it..."

"Bet that was awkward."

"That's not the worst part, I heard Dr. Banner was starting to go a little green around the edges."

"Well she is the Black Widow for all we know... Good morning Agent Romanoff, Dr. Banner." The young cadets barked having the decency to sound terrified. Natasha just kept walking ignoring them only her smirk telling those around her she had heard.

Bruce didn't look up from the floor until an apple hit him on the chest and a voice said, "Look alive Doc." and a smiling Steve waved him over to the breakfast bar in the oversized kitchen where he had already prepared a private breakfast. Bruce was relieved to see that Steve didn't seem to think any less of him after the encounter this morning and made his way around the kitchen preparing coffee, tea, and food as Natasha sat on the bar and chatted with Steve her legs swinging in a carefree manner.

"So little lady, ready to get your ass handed to you?" Steve teased through a bight of toast.

"I don't know old man, I'm feeling pretty lithe." She teased kicking him in the arm and causing him to miss his mouth.

Steve snorted, "Ya I'm sure." dodging another kick from his partner Steve said, "What are you up to today Doc?"

"I was going to start work on the oscillation cancellation chamber for Vision. He's coming down to run some tests today. I'm hoping to be able to make a helmet or a device that will be able to be activated so that he can 'unring' himself in the field." Bruce explained.

"Better you than me." Steve said snatching up his last piece of bacon before Natasha could steal it off his plate.

Natasha pouted at Steve, but her begging was short lived when Bruce put a steaming plate of eggs, sausage, bacon and a bowl of oatmeal with fruit under her nose. She hopped off the counter and sat at the bar eating her food in diligent silence. She looked up at Bruce with wide pleading eyes and was rewarded as he smiled and handed her a cup of black coffee.

The trio finished eating in companionable chatter, but soon the bar was clear and the kitchen was cleaned and none of them could avoid the real world any longer.

"I'll be putting that door in tonight." Steve said standing to go, "Ready to hit the training room?"

Natasha sighed and glanced sidelong at Bruce who raised an eyebrow at her, "Ya lets go old man." she said and headed for the door.


	9. Chapter 9

Natasha flung herself backwards narrowly dodging Steve's foot as it went whizzing past her face. "You know, it's good. You and Banner" Steve said hardly whipping sweat from his eyes with one hand as he blocked Natasha's punch with the other.

"Ya? How'd you figure?" Natasha asked ducking under his fist and trying to take him down at the knees.

"You're good for each other. You both kinda like to keep to your selves." Steve explained dodging right to avoid a pair of vice like legs wrapping around his neck, "and you know he's so revered and..."

"Dorky?" Natasha supplied landing a well aimed punch on Steve's shoulder joint only to hiss at being clipped in the bruised ribs by the edge of his knee.

Steve chuckled, "Ya and you're so..."

"Physical." She said connecting solidly with both feet in the center of Steve's chest forcing him to take two large unbalanced steps back. Finishing her kick in a handstand she flipped forward and swiped his knees out from under him following his hard smack on the mats by framing his shoulders between her thighs sitting on his chest her hand at his throat.

"Ya, that." He groaned and motioned for her to get off him.

Natasha stood and offered a hand which Steve denied as usual to keep from pulling her slight frame over onto the floor with him. "All I'm saying is I think it's good that you draw each other out of your shells." Cap said chugging down some water and whipping his brow with white gym towel.

"Well I guess I'm glad you approve." Natasha snorted.

"I'm your partner aren't I?" Steve asked, "Just imagine what I would do if I had to have Stark around all the time, or I don't know someone more annoying than Stark."

Natasha snorted, "There's someone more annoying than Stark?"

"Well last time I met Thor's brother he annoyed me quite a bit." Steve reminded her.

"He's not even Human." Natasha observed her wrinkling her nose.

Steve just laughed, "Be honest, would that stop you?"

Natasha just shrugged, "I suppose it would depend."

"Good, because Bruce isn't exactly your stereotypical Human." Steve teased.

"Stereotypical's boring. Besides don't you remember? I like my men bulletproof." She reminded him with a wink mimicking shooting a gun at him with her fingers.

"I still haven't gotten you back for that you know." Steve said brandishing a finger at her as if she was a petulant child.

"Not my fault you're getting slow old man." Natasha teased smacking Steve on the chest with her towel.

"I'll show you slow." Steve said grabbing Natasha up and throwing her over his shoulder before chucking her on the training mat the pair laughing the whole time.

Dinner that night was a family affair as Steve, Natasha and Wanda had cooked. Steve, Natasha, Bruce, Wanda, Sam, Rhodey, Vision, Fury, and Hill all gathered around one of the large oval conference room tables passing bowels of pasta, meatballs, veggies and parmesan chicken around. Vision was still learning about food and the disjointed explanations from various team members reminded Steve, Bruce and Nat of what it had been like trying to accustom Thor to their world.

The three smiled at each other at the memories as their young team chattered around them. Rhodey was still trying to impress them with Iron Patriot stories an Sam was countering with exploits he had as a paratrooper. Wanda was in quiet polite conversation with Vision, but the pair smiled often and sometimes butted into the boys' stories to add their own opinion or exploit. Wanda's head would occasionally snap in one direction or another like someone was calling her name, but she was still learning to block thoughts out when she was in public places.

Natasha and Steve were laughing and teasing each other with Fury about their training today, half of which he had watched from his observation deck. Maria and Bruce were discussing some of his research and brainstorming other projects that might benefit the team, but kept getting interrupted by Sam who wanted Vibranium wings and Vision who had endless questions about the research Bruce was doing on his stone.

Once dinner was over the recruits left and Natasha turned in her chair to study the rest of the group. Fury was watching her suspiciously and Bruce, Steve and Maria were jokingly arguing over something Bruce had said.

"You know what we have to do next don't you." Natasha asked the group at large the seriousness of her voice cutting off all other conversation.

"What are you talking about Romanoff?" Nick said suspiciously.

"The recruits. It's time we had the Avengers back and not just some ragtag group of wannabes." Natasha reminded them.

Steve sighed as Maria and Fury nodded their agreement. Bruce moved to stand, but Natasha and Steve each grabbed an arm as Steve said, "No, you should stay. You may not be a part of the Avengers anymore, but if anyone took a learning curve when learning to work as a team it was you. I value your opinion. We all do."

Bruce nodded and settled as Steve took his hand off his right arm, but Natasha's stayed softly resting on his left her thumb soothing circles on his skin.

"What do you propose Romanoff? I'm not planning on loosing another commander to pull your little team together." Nick reminded her.

"I know, and it wouldn't work anyway. It's not that they don't want to be a team, it's that they don't know how to. Trial by fire won't work for them." Natasha reasoned.

"So what we do trust games?" Steve asked unsure of the other options.

"No." Natasha said her face setting in hard lines, "When I was in the Red Room," she began and Bruce's hand came to take hers in support and comfort, "we had to fight each other. We fought to the death, but it served two purposes: it weeded out the weak and it taught us to kill someone we were intimate with. When you fight someone, you learn not only how you can hurt them, but how you can help them. Having that ability to help someone and being forced to kill them makes killing a mark easy, but it also gave me my best friend. Barton made the other call when he found me. He fought me, he found out how to hurt me, how to kill me, but also how to help me. How to lift me up and make me a better me. He chose to lift me up just like I chose to kill all those girls. They won't understand each other until they understand each other's weaknesses so that they can cover for them and their strengths so that they can boost them. We need to force them to fight each other. Force all of us to fight each other; one on one, with the rest of the team watching from the observation deck." Natasha explained studying the table before her instead of the people around her.

"Is that advisable?" Bruce asked.

"Is avenging advisable?" Natasha retorted to which Bruce nodded in agreement.

"So what we have them full out fight each other, hurt each other so that they become closer?" Steve asked incredulously, " Seems a little backwards to me."

"People are backwards Captain Rodgers." Fury insisted, "Natasha's right. The world has been without the Avengers for too long already. They need to become a team and fast and this is the best way. I'm with Natasha."

"How do you expect someone like Sam to defeat someone like Vision? We don't even know all of what Wanda is capable of. Most of those fights won't even be close to fair." Steve argued.

"You think I stood a chance against Thor or the Hulk? No if either of them ever want me dead I'm dead and that's the fact of it. I knew that. I never fought it, I never questioned it and that's how I survived. I knew they were leagues beyond me and that saved my life more than once." Natasha insisted standing to tower over the table, but keeping ahold of Bruce's hand and soothing it when he flinched at the reminder of the Hulk's ruthless power. "Some of them will be over powered and some of them will surprise us, but I'd rather know it now then when one of them has a gun pointed down his or her throat."

Steve sighed and buried his head in his hands rubbing his face. "I agree with Natasha, it's cold and, forgive my saying so, but very Russian, but it's the right choice right now. It's more than you guys ever got and this way we can put down ground rules and control it. Out in the woods though I think. Tony was kind to have this built, but he might start getting snippy if we demolish it in only a few months." Maria suggested.

"Bruce?" Steve asked his eyes almost pleading the older man to disagree.

Bruce shrugged, "Better to find out what they're capable of here in a controlled environment out on the field and Natasha has a point that the better they know each other the better they can help each other."

Steve sighed in defeat, "Fine." He said, "We'll make an even bigger clearing and have the contests at the end of the week, but there are going to be serious regulations on it."

"Its a war simulation Cap. Only one rule, keep actual bodily harm to a minimum and we'll need a judge to call a win so we can be sure without killing anyone." Natasha insisted.

"Damn it Natasha this isn't Soviet Russia we can't pit them against each other like cage dogs." Steve argued standing to face her.

"We're not." Natasha reminded him, "Unlike the Red Room, they signed up for this, we signed up for this, knowing full well what we were signing up for and we'll do it again. We'll give them a choice, but anyone who doesn't fight can't be on the team. They can stay, they can train and maybe one day they can join, but not today."

"You're going to have a hard time convincing Vision to fight needlessly." Bruce reminded her.

"No, Vision is on the side of life, we won't be taking life, we will be training and learning how best to defend it in the future." Natasha reminded them all.

"Fine, but we tell them first and Fury referees." Steve said standing and exiting the room fists clenched and shoulders tight.

Maria sighed and said, "I'll see if I can go talk to him." before leaving as well.

"Well I haven't got anything to say." Fury said and made his exit as silently as he had entered.

"I'm tired, you ready for bed?" Bruce asked.

"My room or yours?" Natasha asked with a flirtatious smile, "Lead the way Doctor."


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Hey guys, I'm sorry I haven't updated recently. I have a chronic disease that takes a lot out of me especially when I have to go in for treatments. They upped my treatment so it kicked me a little harder than usual. On top of that my husband was involved in a car accident and we've been trying to get him back to normal ever since. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to writing some more, but I'm going to try to work on several of my stories so it might not be as frequent :/ Sorry Guys I love you all!

"So let me get this straight..." Rhodey said holding up a metal finger, "You want us to fight each other so that we can learn about each other and somehow that is going to make us closer?" He asked disbelievingly his face showing the same skeptical expression as every one else's.

"Yes, trust me it will work." Natasha said, "I've seen it first hand."

"I am unsure that I am comfortable fighting my friends for no good reason. Fighting should only be done in the name of protecting life, not for sport." Vision said looking a little uncomfortable.

"This is for life, we need to be a real team if we are going to be able to save innocent life when we need to, not to mention keep each other from getting killed." Natasha reminded them, "and besides it's not like we're going to kill each other, the guns have rubber bullets, reactors are set to stun and Vision and Scarlet Witch will be controlling their powers. No one is even going to get seriously hurt not to mention killed and Fury is calling the kills and wounds so we can keep track like a real battle."

"Did you guys ever do this? The old Avengers I mean, did you fight each other like this?" Wanda asked.

"Trust me, we fought each other plenty." Bruce said averting his eyes and scratching the back of his head.

"You'd be surprised at the number of times I used to have to kick my old partner's ass." Natasha added.

Steve snorted, "I fought Thor, and kinda Tony then too, I ran interference on Hulk once or twice, I've never had the misfortune of fighting Nat for real, but I train with her enough that I know everything about her fighting style and possibly a little more than I needed to about her capabilities as a spy too." He said turning a little pink around the edges at the last comment and avoiding Bruce's eyes making the older man raise an eyebrow.

"Are we going to get paired up into partners like you two are?" Sam asked.

"You're partner is whoever is on the mission with you no matter who it is, but yes some people will get paired up more than others. For example three of you are made of or use metal, four of you fly, but it drains Wanda, three of us have natural protection from guns and what not, only two of us could probably shoot someone through the eye at a block away, but only one of us doesn't need a gun. Different missions call for different kills; we each bring different things to the table and it's my job to decide who's best for what." Steve explained.

"Look guy's, we're not going to make you do this, but anyone who sits it out has to go about joining the team the slow way. You will be excluded from all Avengers business until such time as the team thinks you are ready and capable of being an equal member. " Natasha said eyeing them all one by one, "So who's in?"

Every one turned looking at one another, but it was Wanda who raised her hand first and said, "I'm in."

"Ya me too." Said Rhodey quickly followed by everyone else.

"Well then what are you waiting for, get in the damn car and let's get out there." Fury barked striding into the room.

The team adjusted their various suits and weapons a little nervously before filing out to the offroaders as they rode out to the clearing that had been made for them. Looking around the clearing in the forest Natasha noted that various random objects like, jeeps, piles of crumbled of building material, and other rubble. It was a sight that was familiar to all of them as they stood around a little awkwardly measuring each other up.

"Soooooo uhhhh who's first?" Sam asked rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ladies first." Fury's voice quipped over the projected speaker system as Black Widow and Scarlet witch turned to look at each other. Natasha's face stayed hard and impassable, but a bead of sweat slipped down her temple as the memory of the last time she had face the witch. Wanda gulped eyeing The Widow up and down before setting her mouth in a determined line her eyes tinged with a bit of red.

The women positioned themselves on either side of the clearing, Maria on the side with Wanda and Bruce standing opposite next to Natasha.

"We don't have to do this one first Natasha." Bruce assured her.

Natasha snorted, "and what? Tell Fury no?"

"I don't care what we have to tell him Natasha," Bruce said taking her face between his hands forcing her to look at him, "Fury can go fuck himself for all I care. You don't need to be revisiting all of that gain."

Natasha laughed softly and kissed Bruce lightly, "I'm fine dear. I just can't let her touch me and I'll be fine. This was my idea remember?"

Bruce smiled softly and said, "Ok. Be safe Tasha, and remember, you're stronger than her. Don't let her take over." He said kissing her forehead and stepping back as Fury began the countdown.

"Any advice?" Wanda asked Maria.

Maria snorted, "Against the Black Widow? Nothing is unexpected. Don't even expect the unexpected; anything and everything is unexpected. Her brain works a hundred times faster than anyone else's and she's the most creative person I've ever met. She can use anything to her advantage before you even realize what it is."

"So basically don't give her time to think." Wanda decided.

Maria outright laughed, "Too late kid. She already has."

"Begin in 3... 2... 1..." Fury's voice said over the loud system, "Begin the battle between Black Widow and Scarlet Witch."


	11. Chapter 11

"So wanna make a bet on who'll win?" Sam challenged the others.

"My money's on Wanda." Rhodey said, "Her powers have gotten pretty bad ass."

"If I had money I would place it on Wanda as well." Vision agreed with a nod, "Her powers have the ability to draw out Natasha's greatest weakness: her past."

Steve snorted, "Alright boys, I'll take your money. Twenty buck Natasha wins and double it if the battle is over in less than five minutes." He said shaking the other hands with his opponents. Sam, as the overseer of their bet, started the clock and the four turned to watch the battle before them.

"You seem pretty sure of this Cap, Vision does have a point you know Wander had her pretty shaken up last time." Sam reminded him.

"Fool Natasha once and she'll blame herself. Fool Natasha twice, and she'll kill you." Steve said simply, "Watch and learn boys, watch and learn."

As soon as the round was started Natasha was sprinting for a near by rusted out jeep. Bracing her foot on the side of the car she heaved against the hinges of the door eventually ripping it off. With a quick stab of her knife into the bullet proof glass she twisted it hard and made a whole just large enough for the muzzle of her rubber loaded gun. The glass spider webbed out some making it harder for her to see, but the specialized glass was resistant to most of the cracks and it was still feasible. The heavy door and gun were just a distraction, but Natasha could tell it was working when Wanda came floating over head a little more cautiously then she might otherwise have done.

Red wisps knocked rubber bullets to either side of the flying woman as the sound of a hand gun firing went of repeatedly. Frustrated by Natasha's makeshift shield Wanda sent another red wisp down to rip it from her hands. The door went soaring across the field, but something caught Wanda's eye as it flew. Dozens of tiny silver and blue disks were flung in every direction as rubber bullet clipped the inside of a bag that was tied to the inside of the door ripping it open. In her attempt to get the door as far away from Natasha she had flung the door past herself meaning that the disks were flying towards her at random in high velocity. Surprised Wanda flinched for half a second before swinging her arms wildly forcing a bubble of her red power out around her to protect her.

The burst of power, although effective in deflecting the disks, drained Wanda for half a second and she slumped towards the ground. She dipped, her lack of power bringing her closer to the ground and Natasha took the opportunity to launch herself from a pile of pipes, to a stack of rubble before launching herself into the air and shooting her gun three times straight at Wanda's face before turning her shoulder as if to break her fall back to earth, but in truth disguising the last silver and blue disk that she flung frisbee style from between two of her fingers at the base of Wanda's left knee. The bullets froze in mid air a foot from Wanda's face, but they were just enough to distract her from the disk that attached itself to her leg.

A bright electrical current lit the blue ring in the disk and Wanda screamed and dropped from the sky. Natasha hit the ground and rolled to her feet before launching out and snatching Wanda's limp body from the air rolling with her so that she landed groaning on the ground Wanda laying limp and unconscious on top of her.

"Black Widow wins." Fury's voice resounded through the clearing.

Wanda rolled to the side and groaned saying, "creative".

"Hu?" Natasha asked between pants pushing herself up into a sitting position.

"Nothing." Wanda groaned and gave up her attempt at sitting up to slouch back to the dirty ground.

"Hey ladies, how do we feel?" Bruce asked bending over the pair.

"Trashed." Wanda said rubbing here eyes with one hand and her leg with the other.

"Peachy." Natasha said at the same time letting Bruce help her to her feet.

Bruce chuckled and took to looking Wanda over and detaching the shock disk from her leg. Once he was done he took a step back, but it was Natasha who was there offering a hand to help her up.

"No hard feelings?" She asked helping the younger girl to her feet.

"Now, we're even." She said gently placing her fingers on Natasha's temple for the second time since their meeting. Natasha didn't flinch and nothing came through into her mind. The gesture formed a bond of trust between them as Natasha allowed Wanda the chance to bring out her greatest weakness, and Wanda in turn trusted her not to kill her for trying. The women stood like that for a moment a wave of respect and understanding passing through them before Natasha nodded, Wanda smiled and the moment was broken.

As Bruce led the girls back across the field to where the rest of the team and Maria waited Steve was stuffing eighty dollars into one of the utility pockets on his uniform.

"He knew that was going to happen?" Rhodey accused grumpily.

Steve laughed,"No I know Natasha. There's a difference." He reminded them.

As the women approached Steve smiled and congratulated them both on a good fight.

"So who's next" Sam asked, and once again as if he were listening the Fury's voice came over the coms.

"Falcon will now fight Iron Patriot." He boomed and the pair eyed each other up. Patriot's mask snapped down over his face and he took off to the other side of the field.

Sam looked around at the others and said, "I'm fucked aren't I? He has better maneuverability, better weapons, better strength..."

"Admittedly this arena doesn't exactly play to your strengths, but when was the last time Tony Stark ever made something that wasn't ostentatious?" Steve reminded him.

Maria pulled Sam away from the group before he had time to respond and spoke to him as he slid his flight goggles on, "Sneak up on him, take him by surprise and you might have a chance. Keep in mind Stark makes high tech precision machinery your's is eighty five percent you."

"Ya that's what I'm worried about." The Falcon grumbled.

"Use that to your advantage. The human body will always be capable of doing things that a machine never can." Maria reminded him.

"Ya well luckily The Iron Patriot has Rhodes too." Sam quipped sharing a lopsided grin with Maria.

Fury's voice came over the coms comanding, "Begin in 3... 2... 1... Begin the battle between Iron Patriot and The Falcon."

Sam dashed into the ring as quiet as he could be his wings tucked tight against his back. He made his way into the shadows of a pile of rubble skirting along the edge making sure he was alway keeping something between him and the red white and blue beacon in the sky. It took him almost three minutes to get into place but eventually he was positioned back where Rhodey had started looking up at the back of the suit while the Patriot scanned the ground for him repeatedly.

Rhodey had been searching for the Falcon for what felt like ages and was beginning to become unnerved by the fact that he wan't in the air yet. He turned a one eighty to face the other direction and instinctually shot backwards as he found the falcon only feet from his face and coming fast.

Rhodey turned and dodged at the last minute, but it was too late for him as Sam smashed into him knocking his face mask off before folding his wings and dropping like a rock dodging the stun blasters Rhodey sent his way. Sam dodged in and out of of stunning beams as Rhodey shot at him firing his rubber bullet gun at the exposed flesh of his missing face mask forcing Rhodey to doge and stay off balance throughout their fight. After about fifteen minutes of chasing the nibble falcon around the room Rhodey finally lost his temper and lit up all of his blasters spinning in a circe only stopping when he heard Sam's scream and dropping to catch him before he hit the ground.

"Hey, how y'doin there bud?" Rhodey asked Sam as he set him down.

"Iron Patriot wins." Fury said over the coms.

Sam chuckled and said, "What you couldn't done that sooner and saved me the trouble?"

"Wasn't sure it would work." Rhodey laughed standing the other man up on his feet.

"Clipped a wing and shorted out the pack." Sam explained.

"Sorry man. Go see if Bruce can touch it up for you." Rhodey said clapping him on the back.

Steve clapped Vision on the back and said, "Well looks like it's you and me are next."

"You bet your ass." Fury said making the pair chuckle before Vision flew off to the other side of the field.


	12. Chapter 12

Steve raised his shield and redirected Vision's beam back at him forcing him to doge sideways before throwing his shield nicking Vision's left leg before calling it back to him.

"That's enough." Fury boomed over the intercom sounding frustrated. "I'm calling it. It's a tie. Go away, I'm done with you."

Vision came down and shook Steve's hand saying, "Well fought."

"Ya that was good." Steve agreed as the pair walked off the field.

"Are we going to take a break or keep fighting?" Sam asked Hill and Bruce.

"I suppose the god above will tell us." Hill said with a smirk, "He really is having too much fun with this com system..."

"Be glad I can't put you in that arena Agent Hill." Fury's voice boomed.

"No breaks. Natasha, Rhodey, you're up."

Bruce watched the battle before him with clenched hands forcing his breath to be slow and even. He hadn't watched Natasha fight very many times. He usually quickly devolved in the beast especially when he saw her in danger. It was equally reassuring and terrifying to watch her fight. She really was something spectacular as she dodged and blocked the stun-beams and fought an opponent that should out strip her by a mile. That's what was terrifying about it though. The more he watched her fight the more and more he realized how outmatched she really was by everyone. He had the hulk and couldn't get so much as a broken arm, but Natasha was so soft of vulnerable.

Steve's hand on his shoulder and voice behind him broke Bruce's forced calm gaze as Steve said, "She's the best fighter I've ever seen."

Bruce just nodded his agreement, but his muscles were still tense.

"She knows what to do in every situation and always picks the best possible option and I know what you're thinking, she doesn't have super serum, or a suit or mind control... but that's what makes her Natasha. She doesn't need it. Sure sometimes she's out gunned and she's almost always out muscled, but she can handle it, and when she can't, that's what we're for." Steve assured him.

"Ya, ya of course." Bruce said taring his eyes away from the tiny woman in the ring and giving a forced smile to Steve.

In that moment he missed it, he wasn't really sure if that was a good thing, but the next thing he knew Natasha was on the ground passed out and Rhodey was falling from the sky only to be slowed by a plumb of red mist. Steve took off at a dead run towards the arena and as Bruce turned around his heat froze in his chest. Bruce knew better then to run to her with his already elevated heartbeat, but he pushed himself as fast as he could go taking deep calm breaths.

"Black Widow wins." Fury said over the loud speaker, but Bruce wanted to suggest an eye exam to him as Steve lifted Natasha's limp body off the forest floor and cradled her to him in his large strong arms.

"Natasha." Bruce said as he met Steve half way back to him, "What happened is she ok?" He asked his fingers already on her strong pulse.

"Bruce?" She asked with a groan her eyes fluttering, but not opening.

Steve walked her back to the truck as Bruce kept pace with them. Steve set her down and Bruce knelt in front of her looking her over. Her hand was locked around one of her electric rods and as Bruce unclenched it and removed the weapon Natasha hissed in pain. Her hand was slightly charred from the electric current that must have been the cause of her lack of consciousness.

"What did you do?" Bruce asked brushing hair out of her eyes as the fluttered open too look at him blurred and dull with pain.

"Used the widow's bite to... short the suit, but not enough power or reach... Linked the two... back-shock is a bitch though." She mumbled regaining her breath and coming back to herself as her eyes cleared and her head lifted to look at him properly.

"You took all of the back charge from the suit?" Bruce said incredulously. "What were you thinking? That could have killed you!" Bruce wanted to shake her to make her realize what her death could mean. She couldn't do shit like that.

"Not all." She said holding up her hand to show that what Bruce had passed off as char was actually a thin piece of cloth melted to her skin.

Bruce ran the tip of his finger across a less scorched area of fabric and said, "Silk. You used silk as a semi-buffer. You knew this was going to happen so you used silk to block some of it letting enough get through you that it wouldn't block the rebound that would be needed to fry the suit..."

Natasha smiled and winked at him saying, "Isn't science fun?"

"No." Bruce said matter of factly before stepping back and letting the medical team treat her.

"How's Rhodey?" She asked.

Bruce really wasn't sure so he looked around and found him pouting over his suit as the team of mechanics that had just finished repairing Sam's wings worked on the shorted suit.

"Pouting." Bruce said still unimpressed with Natasha's stunt.

Natasha laughed and Fury called Steve and Wanda into the arena.

At the end of the day it was starting to get dark, but they fights were over. Natasha had lost to Vision and tied Steve. Vision had fallen victim to Wanda's manipulation as had Rhodey. Sam maneuverability and speed had proved to much for Wanda as had Steve's super serum. Steve was the only one that never lost a match, but he tied two. Over all the group learned a lot about the fighting style of the others and to what lengths they were willing to go to win.

Dinner that night was a noisy affair put on by Fury, Maria and Bruce as the fighters cleaned up and met them in the main dining area long cleared of other members.

"I coulda had your ass in a heartbeat if I was using my full power." Rhodey assured Wanda as they entered as the last two to the table.

"Keep dreaming mini Stark." Wanda teased taking her seat between Rhodey and Vision."

"That was an excellent fight this evening." Vision told her passing her a bowl of mashed potatoes. "Let us hope we never have repeat." He said with a smile.

Wanda smiled back at him scooping out some potatoes and said, "Ya I really wasn't sure what was going to happen when I tried to give you that illusion considering you're half cells hav vibranium, what was it like?"

"If you could imagine what it is like to have a computer as a brain then imagine someone pulls up a video on your mind and forces it to the front. It was very distracting, I was able to be aware of my surroundings and I knew what was happening, but it was taking up so much of my current awareness that it was very hard to concentrate on anything else. And then to find myself moving without my on volition was a very uncomfortable experience; I could not break free. I thank you for the experience though, it was very enlightening."

Wanda smiled and the pair joined in to their dinners still talking about powers and their fight.

"You gunna come train with me some more tomorrow Nat?" Steve asked her.

"What you want me to kick your head a round some more?" Natasha asked.

"Ya, seriously what was with all those head shots?" Steve asked with a laugh.

"I was trying to keep that shield in front of your face and keep you fighting blind. That's how I got your legs out from under you so well that one time. Might have had you too if I had any more of those shock disks left." Natasha said teasingly elbowing him in the ribs playfully as he went to take a bite of green beans causing him too drop the fork full into his lap.

Bruce, Sam, and Fury laughed as Steve blushed cleaning off his shorts. "It'd take more than one of those tiny things to land me on my ass Romanoff."

Natasha gasped dramatically saying, "Language Steven, Captain America doesn't like that type of talk."

"You know what Romanoff?" Steve said pointing at her.

"What Rogers?" she quiped back at him.

"Eat your dinner." he said lamely turning back to his own glowing pink around the edges.

Everyone laughed and ate and enjoyed their time together as the official new Avengers.


	13. Chapter 13

"So what did you think of today?" Natasha asked Bruce once they were back in his bedroom.

"Well it worked, but I'm glad it's over." Bruce admitted.

"What don't like watching me fight the kids?" She asked him teasingly leaning across to lay on his lap where he sat on the edge of the bed trying to take off his shoes blocking him from his task and smiling playfully at him.

"I don't like watching you fight anyone. I don't want you getting hurt." He said giving up and looking down at her his expression a little worried.

"Don't go soft on me Bruce. I've been doing this since I was nine years old and I don't plan on stopping any time soon nor do I have any need to." Natasha said seriously sitting up to look at him.

Bruce shook his head saying, "I know, I know. I would never ask you to stop fighting. Never, and I respect you as a fighter more then you will ever know, but you also can't ask me not to worry about you. I care so I worry. That's just how this works." He said taking her hands in his.

Natasha nodded and said, "I've seen how Laura gets when Clint is gone... I've seen her hold herself together for the kids the best she can, but she's not herself until he's home safe and that look on her face when he comes home... like she's so grateful her world still turns... That's something I never wanted."

Bruce wasn't really sure what to say to that, but then he remembered Steve in her doorway as she shot at him, "Like you men bulletproof hu?" Bruce said with a small smile making her break into a self deprecating grin.

"I just wish I could be bulletproof for you." She said laying her hand over his hear.

Bruce took her hand in his and smiled at her sadly, "Have you ever looked at the two of them and wondered which one is stronger?" He asked her, "I did." Natasha nodded thinking about Clint on the battlefield on one hand and Laura barefoot, pregnant and alone with a kid on each hip. "They have a different kind of strength don't they." he reflected and she nodded again.

"I have that kind of strength too Natasha. It's not fun, but neither is getting your ass handed to you by robots and aliens, but they're worth it. Both of them. You're worth it." He said taking her face in his hands and kissing her softly.

She deepened the kiss running her fingers through his curly hair as he drew her towards him. His hands were soft, but firm and confident as he broke way briefly to slowly pull her tank top up over her head throwing it on the floor beside the bed they had shared the last two nights. Natasha let him lay her back on the bed as his hands fluttered softly over her stomach and shoulders around her sports bra. She gave him a minute to explore her before pulling back from their kiss once more to strip him of his shirt.

She didn't touch him much just laying in bed kissing him and letting his gentile work calloused hands trail over her body. His breathing was controlled and he forced himself to keep calm as he marveled in how soft her skin was despite the numerous scars that littered her body.

He hooked his fingers in the top of her yoga pants peeling them off of her slowly taking in every inch of her sculpted legs as he revealed them. The pants now joining her shirt on the floor Bruce worked his way back up one leg caressing every inch of it before traveling back up her stomach laying feather light kisses there and on her collarbone and neck.

Natasha wanted desperately to kiss him, to touch him, but she knew that if she pushed him he would have to stop and that was the last thing she wanted.

Bruce spent the rest of their evening worshiping her body softly and sweetly with his hands and lips before curing her into him as they slept.

Neither was expecting the door banging open and Steve standing in the doorway panting slightly, "God damn it guys, you need to pick a room. Suit up." Steve said to the barrel of the pistol Natasha had hidden in Bruce's room the first night she stayed there. Natasha jumped out of bed throwing on her yoga pants before racing out the door in her sports bra after Steve.

Bruce quickly threw on some blue jeans and a button down before following. By the time he got there the team was assembled and dressed with a few members still stuffing weapons into various holsters. "What is it this time?" He asked Steve who was ready and waiting for his team alongside Vision.

"Suit's still a little buggy Cap." Rhodey yelled over their heads in warning.

"You can switch it out when we get there. We're headed to Stark Tower." Steve said.

"Something happened there?" Bruce asked concerned.

"I guess. All I got was an SOS from Friday before he called and told me where the party was at." Steve said as Natasha finished slipping her last weapon into place.

"Lets go." She said nodding to Steve as he lead the group out to the hanger. Looking over her shoulder at Bruce's worried face she nodded to him as well and he turned and set off towards his labs grabbing a com for himself before walking out the door.

"Are we sure this isn't just some sort of Avenger's booty-call?" Natasha asked as they flew over the seemingly quiet streets of New York city at 2:50 am.

They were coming up on the tower when all hell broke loose. "Rhodey, drop the hatch and change out the suit, Sam, Vision, Wanda start getting those things rounded up, Natasha take the controls and get us close enough for me to jump then put her down and deal with the ones on the street." Cap commanded pulling how cowl down as the back hatch opened and team members started jumping out.

"What are we seeing guys?" Bruce asked over the coms confused by the convoluted cloud surrounding Stark Tower.

"Uhhh drones?" Natasha said unsure of exactly what she was seeing.

"Not drones, Not drones, Not drones!" Tony yelled tapping into their coms as he whizzed by. "By the way, who said Rhodey could use my suit? I don't like to share my things."

"Tony this is not the time." Cap said jumping out the hatch as Natasha swung by on the way down tot he ground to deal with the threat from there, "What the hell are these things?"

"Biomechanical sub-humanoid remote controlled flying shit." Tony said flying by as Natasha landed and powered down the jet.

"Thanks Tony." Natasha said sarcastically.

"No, no I got it." Bruce said, "Focus on using energy and electric it will fry some of the circuits but it should also do some serious damage to the biologics where they connect with the biological parts. As far as I can tell these are some sort of early prototype of Vision that they are probably trying to use to steal the technology used to make him. They don't have the Vibranium though so the biomechanics are choppy at best." Bruce explained.

"Easy there Doc, middle of a battle here. I'll take my science lessons later." Natasha quipped as she trust her electric rods at various enemies in the swarm.

"There's too many of them to hit one at a time." Tony yelled into the coms.

"My power is only knocking them back." Wanda yelled fighting to throw them away from her, but failing even at that attempt due to their sheer number.

"Stark they've drilled through the glass we need someone on the inside to hold them off." Steve said just as a reactor beam garrisoned through the opening frying a couple dozen assailants to reveal Pepper Pots with a suit hand on each of her own and a com piece in her ear.

"Oh good dear you're back from Japan. I didn't see you come in." Tony quipped flying in to help her as she held off the enemies.

"I barley knew I was home flying into all this crap." She rallied back shooting down more bio-droids.

"Hey Cap, if Wand floats you into the middle of that mess and Vision and Rhodey give you some pretty beams of light do you think you could spread the love while Sam and I herd them in?" Natasha asked half a second before one of the bio-drones trying to drown her knocked the com out of her ear.

Bruce heard her com hit the ground and cussed out loud with his com off before flipping it on and saying, "We've lost Natasha on coms" in between Steve's orders to take her suggestion.

Hearing and seeing what was going on outside the tower Pepper and Tony also aimed their reactor beams at Captain's shield as Wanda levitated him in the air and he angled the shield crisping the enemies out of the air. All Natasha could do was protect her face as chunks of metal, machinery and biological matter rained down from the skies above her burring her more than ten feet down with no coms.

Bruce watched in growing horror at the screen before him as Natasha was buried alive by frying sparking bits of metal and charing flesh. "Guys get Natasha." He all but yelled before getting up and pacing the room trying to control his green tinged skin and eyes.

"We're on it Bruce, just stay calm and we'll have her out soon." Cap promised over the coms.

"Steve? Shut up." Bruce said knowing he would regret his harshness later, but right now he didn't want to be told to be calm; he wanted to turn into giant green monster and dig her out of there one handful at a time.

"Hey Bruce, it's Pepper can you hear me?" She asked over the coms, but Bruce didn't answer. "They're pulling all the robots off her now. I can see them. I'm standing on the twenty third floor of the tower and I can see them. Tony and Rhodey are blasting them off, Wanda is levitating so many of them Vision is having to hold her up in the air because she doesn't have any power left over to hold herself up. Captain is digging a tunnel through with his shield. They'll have her out in a second Bruce. The parts are so lose and scattered she has plenty of room to breath and this one here with me only weighs about five pounds. With them so spread out I all over the place she can't have more than a couple hundred pounds on her. She's doing fine Bruce. I'm starting to see pavement now and Sam is directing Steve where to go to get her. He can see her now from the air. He's got her Bruce. Steve has her. He's carrying her out of there and she's moving. She's ok Bruce. Look he's giving her a com now. She's ok Bruce." Pepper said talking him through everything going on as he squeezed his head between his hands in some attempt to control the monster.

"Natasha?" Bruce all but begged over the com.

"Oww" She groaned in a rough hoarse voice.

"Natasha talk to me." Bruce said.

"I'm flipping her to Com link three Banner. You can talk in private." Steve informed him and Bruce quickly flipped his link as well.

"Talk to me Natasha." He demanded again and heard a rough dry cough.

"I'll make it. Just make sure I still have a home to come back to ok big guy?" she said in a dry raspy voice.

"What hurts Natasha?" He demanded of her.

"Everything." She said with a pained rye chuckle that quickly devolved into another coughing fit. "Some minor singes and burns, but" more coughing, "Mostly it's my lungs. I breathed" another coughing fit, "too much of their vaporized crap."

"Ok Natasha stop talking. I'm going to switch over and talk to Cap for just a second then I'll be right back ok?" When she didn't respond right away Bruce switched to team coms anyway. "Get her on oxygen and try to keep her from talking. She probably has some decent scaring in her lungs. Get her back as quick as you can. She's probably gunna need a little time in the Cradle when she gets here." Bruce explained to Steve who agreed and told him they were taking off.

Bruce switched the coms back and talked to Natasha the whole way home even though she wasn't allowed to talk herself. She smiled distantly as the medics worked around her and nearly broke the wrist of the girl who tried to pull the com out of her ear.


	14. Chapter 14

Neither Bruce nor Natasha had left med bay in the last two days. They were both exhausted and in need of sleep in a real bed, but found the door to Bruce's room locked and his name removed. Natasha's to was likewise unavailable and her temper was rising to a boiling point when JARVIS said, "Ms. Romanoff, Dr. Banner, Captain Rogers wishes for me to inform you that your personal quarters have been moved to the sixth level."

"Thank you JARVIS." Bruce said leading his ticked off companion back to the elevator.

"I hope to hell Steve moved all of the shit from my room himself." Natasha said bitterly, "He wouldn't stop blushing for another seventy years."

"I'm quite sure I don't want to know dear." Bruce said a little pink himself and escorted her out onto their level. Sure enough half way down the hall on the left side was a door with nameplates reading "N. Romanoff- A, SO" and one below it reading "B. Banner-PhD".

"Look Bruce we're fancy now." Natasha quipped eyeing the door with distaste.

"A, SO?" He asked confused.

"Avenger, Special Operations." She explained scanning her card and letting them into the room.

"Does Avengers not imply special operations?" He asked still confused following her into their new space.

"There are only three SOs in the building. Fury, Hill, and myself. They felt like it was better then putting 'we're here to spy on all your asses' on the plaques although that one did get my vote." She said dryly.

Their new quarters were a full flat with a kitchen, living area, guest suits, and a large master with a huge master bath. All of their things were moved in apart from three boxes that read in large red lettering "N. Romanoff. DO NOT OPEN. DO NOT OPEN. DO NOT OPEN." sitting on the bedroom floor. Natasha couldn't help herself she busted out laughing.

"As long as there are no human body parts in there I don't want to know." Bruce said tiredly taking off his glasses and setting them on the nightstand rubbing his eyes.

"There are things in there that resemble human body parts does that count?" Natasha purred coyly stepping out of her shoes.

Bruce groaned and collapsed side long on the bed saying, "I'm too old for this."

Natasha laughed and stripped down to her sports bra and underwear before joining him on the bed. She forced him down to his boxers and the pair crawled into their king size bed and drifted off to a better sleep then either had had since the incident at Start tower began three days ago.

Bruce and Natasha woke late that night into the early morning unsure of what had woken them. Natasha jumped out of bed quickly and dressed in a sports bra and running shorts before sneaking out their front door her 9mm S&amp;W M&amp;P 9c raised and ready. She edged out the front door just in time to pull her gun on Vision who was making his way down the hallway. Vision stopped and raised his hands the feint sounds of sobbing and Natasha's deadly silent gip on her 9mm the only thing between them.

Natasha raised an eyebrow lowering the gun, but not taking her finger off the trigger before Vision explained, "I have JARVIS alert me when she is upset in such a away. It happens more often than one might suspect. Her brother was her heart and she his sole. To loose something like that is to loose one's self. I try to comfort her and I find that I do not need as much sleep as most." He explained.

"I'll leave you to it then." Natasha said with a nod lowering her gun completely and relaxing before saying on her way back to her shared room, "But I want to see both of you at 11am tomorrow after breakfast understood?" Vision nodded and the pair went their separate ways.

11am the next day came to find Vision and Wanda waiting for Natasha in her office. Natasha had stayed behind scoping them out and hoping to see if Vision left her room with her or met her there. As she had suspected, he had never returned to his own room. At 11:04 Natasha came strolling into her office on the team's day off.

"You vanted to meet us?" Wanda asked looking up at her pointedly.

"I'm your new hall buddy." Natasha observed to which Wanda raised her eyebrow and nodded, "When was the last time you slept through the night?" She asked the younger woman.

Wanda snorted, "Vwhen I was a little girl. I 'aven't slept the night through since Tony Stark blew my parents brains out."

"Understandable. When was the last night since he found out that Vision hasn't had to come to your room to comfort you because of nightmares about your brother's death?" Natasha asked pointedly.

Wanda crossed her arms and refused to look at the other Russian. "It's been every night." Vision supplied a guilty look on his face about outing his friend, but knowing well it would only get worse if Natasha had to interrogate them.

"Have you ever had one person that was so much a part of you you don't even know who you are without them?" Wanda asked Natasha in a cold dead voice not looking at her.

"No. I have been alone my entire life." Natasha assured her.

"You're not alone anymore." Vision observed.

Natasha snorted, "But I know exactly who I am without him. We all do."

Unable to refute the validity of that statement the pair were silent for a moment before Wanda finally spoke up, "I watched my whole world get torn apart in one day. I waited days for that bomb to go off and for me to just be torn away with it, but it never did. He was the only piece of that world I had left and he's gone. For so many years it was just me and him. He would have done anything to keep me safe, and he did. That's why we signed up for the experimentation, that's why we became what we did. We did it for our city and our past, but we did it for each other, so that no one could ever tare us apart. People often thought us odd, too close to be brother and sister, they said things about us, things that weren't true, but that I can't blame them for thinking. People have learned to hate themselves, find he flaws in themselves and pull at them until they pull themselves apart. We were one person, and when instead we accepted the flaws in each other and promoted the strengths we became on single entity more powerful and self assured then any one person could ever be. Yes, I loved my brother as more than just my brother, I loved him as myself. To me they were one and the same; I lost my self."

The room was quiet for a moment as Wanda's eyes flickering red with rage and pain held Natasha's so resolutely neither woman could break away. "So then what is left? Who is sitting in that chair looking at me? If it's not Wanda and it's not Pietro, who are you?" Natasha asked her with so much resolute calm in her voice it was bordering on cold.

"I don't know." Wanda said angrily through gritted teeth.

"Then figure it out." Natasha said turning to walk out of the room, "And you," She said looking over her shoulder to point at Vision, "Report to Dr. Banner's labs two hours before dinner starts." she instructed before exiting her office.

Natasha made her way down to Bruce's lab letting herself in and earning herself a soft smile as she propped herself up on one of the bench tops while he finished tinkering with an odd looking helmet. Standing up to face her he asked, "So are they together then?"

Natasha smiled a little at him calling her ace, "No not yet, but they will be. That's why I'm having him come down to your labs tonight at 5 for some tests and Q&amp;A. I don't want any surprises when they do decide to take things a few steps further."

Bruce turned a little pink and stammered, "I'm really not a doctor... I'd really feel more comfortable if..."

"Ya ya I know you feel weird asking Vision if he can have sex, doesn't matter you made him you get to make sure he doesn't make any more of him." Natasha said waiving a hand as if to pass of his worries as he turned more and more pink. "That's not why I came down here, we need to talk."

Bruce squirmed even more if possible and grumbled, " Tony's right, those words should be removed from women's vocabularies."

Natasha chuckled pacing her palms on either side of his face and kissing him softly, "Did I ever tell you I adore you, you dork?" He chuckled and relaxed a little and she continued, "I asked JARVIS to show me the video from when I went under the bots on this last mission."

Bruce sighed and grumbled again, "JARVIS is doing all sorts of personal favors these days."

"Yes well you and I both know what I saw. Pepper's the only reason you didn't go all green on me and I wasn't around to bring you back. We can't risk him coming out every time I get hurt."

"You can't ask me not to watch Natasha, I can help you out in the field over the coms and I would be just as likely to loose it not knowing anything." Bruce explained.

"I know." She said, "Let me talk to him."

"No I can't do that. You know I can't do that it's not safe Natasha."

"He won't hurt me, we'll go out in the woods and I just want to talk to him."

"You can't talk to him Natasha he's a monster." Bruce argued voice rising into a yell.

"Don't you dare talk about him like you know him." She yelled back, "You think he's some sort of monster that's taken over your life, but he's not. He's a part of you. We all have our own Hulk inside us. That part of our brain that's all anger and pain and the need to fight and kill, but it's also that part that makes us need to protect those we care about. I'm the one he listens to, I'm the one he follows without question. Let me deal with him."

"You have no idea what it's like having him inside me, having him take over, having no control and waking up only to see the death and destruction he's caused and to know it's all my fault." Bruce said voice low and deadly cold.

"He needs a purpose, a goal or outlet of some kind Bruce, you can't just keep him locked in there and expect to be able to control him." She said more softly.

"This conversation is over Natasha. I'll see you at dinner." Bruce said finally and turned back to his project.


	15. Chapter 15

"Thank you for joining us Miss Romanoff." Furry said sarcastically.

"Not in the mood Nick so someone get to talking."

"Aww trouble in paradise?" Steve teased earning himself a rap across the abs with the back of her hand.

"Alright then I'm going to pretend like you're not all acting like children and just go ahead and jump on in." Hill said rolling her eyes at the others. "Thor contacted us today saying that he thinks one of the other gems might be hiding here on Earth. He has reason to believe that there are traces of this energy throughout various locations on earth, but its concentrated in two primary areas: Egypt and Rome. Now keep in mind these stones are likely several times older than the earth so if primitive cultures got ahold of one it's not a bad idea to look at cultures that were several thousands of years more advanced then their times."

"So I call Rome?" Natasha asked.

"Ya because people in Egypt just love large white men walking around asking questions." Captain joked.

"Hey, I think you'd find the Egyptians to be an advanced openminded culture." Natasha argued.

"Hill will be taking the jet to drop Steve off in Rome where he will use his status as an Avenger to gain the help of the Italian government in researching all of the old Roman empire artifacts they can dig up for him before taking Natasha to Cairo where she will be living under the guise of one Mrs. Elizabeth Tanner; an Argentinean born woman who happens to be an expert in ancient Egyptian culture. Mrs. Tanner died in the shield takeover unfortunately although her death was not reported. We have scheduled for her to take a good looking into their artifacts including touring those tombs which are open for researchers and specialist to view." Fury said matter of factly.

"Great more dead people." Natasha muttered to herself, but out loud she said, "When do we leave."

"Whenever you are ready. There is no set time table." Hill said.

Natasha looked down at her watch, which read 6:16, 44 minutes until dinner and said, "Lift off is in 20 minutes. Think you can make it Cap?"

Steve gave her a concerned look, but nodded anyway.

"Where's Steve and Natasha?" Bruce asked the other Avengers around the dinner table. It was only Wanda, Sam, Rhodey waiting for them as he and Vision had come up from the labs.

Everyone shrugged so Bruce asked, "JARVIS are Steve and Natasha here?"

"No Sir, they departed on the Q-Jet about half an hour ago Dr. Banner."

"Where where they going?"

"I'm sure I was not informed Sir, although they were both packed for quite a trip by the looks of it. Their briefing was done in one of the privacy rooms and I therefore have no video feed of their discussion. Miss Hill left with them and Director Fury left about fifteen minutes before in his private transportation."

Turning away from the dinner table where Vision had just seated himself by Wanda Bruce pulled out his cell and called Natasha's phone. It rang for several seconds before JARVIS said, "Sir, I regret to inform you that Miss Romanoff's phone is ringing in your chambers."

Silently cursing Bruce hung up the phone and went back down to their rooms skipping dinner all together.

Natasha, head and neck wrapped in a scarf and her long skirts flowing out behind her made her way through the dry windy streets of Cairo to her hotel. It wasn't a luxurious affair, but it was something that a researcher could both afford and would find satisfactory when visiting a foreign country. Natasha checked into the hotel in slightly broken Arabic before making her way up to her room followed by the bellhop with her bags.

The room was warm despite the air conditioning and her hair was sticking to her head under her head wrap. Her meeting with the historic society of Cairo was scheduled for the next day. With a sigh Natasha settled down to look out her window wondering how mad Bruce was with her right about now.

"Where is she?" Bruce asked in a firm angry tone over the phone.

"Mr. Banner as I'm sure you are aware no one was informed of Steve and Natasha's missions." Fury said an edge to his forced patient voice.

"I asked you where she is." Bruce said bluntly.

"Mr. Banner I'm sure if she wanted you to know that she would have found the time to tell you in the open ended window I gave her before she left." Fury said before hanging up the phone.

Bruce sighed setting his phone down on his night stand, well Natasha's night stand, instead of throwing it as he wanted to. He dropped his head into his hands rubbing his face between them. How could he have been so stupid? He knew what she was like, he should have known she wouldn't take his dismissal of her well, but what were the chances she would find a legitimate excuse to leave before dinner time? She was no coward to run from confrontation, but she was just stubborn and brooding enough to take his dismissal for more then he meant it to be when the world needed her elsewhere.

Again Bruce shook his head at his own stupidity, what had he been thinking, that he was dating just any old amazing woman that was way out of his league? He was dating Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, and honestly the world always needed her.

The door to their main living quarters creeped open and Bruce jumped dashing into the doorway of their bedroom to see Wanda letting herself in. "You really shouldn't come in her unannounced you know." Bruce reminded her ashamed to admit he was a little crestfallen, "She's got guns stashed all over this place and she has a habit of shooting first and asking later."

"I know. Vision sees more than most people think." Wanda said with a small smile coming to sit on their couch where she could see him clearly standing in the bedroom doorway, "But she's not here is she?"

"No." Bruce said mouth fitting into a firm line as he slowly came to sit in the couch across from her. "You see more of Vision than most people think." he said pointedly.

Wanda nodded her agreement and said, "He told me what you two discussed in your lab today."

Bruce flushed a little at the memory and said, "That's very... candid of him."

Wanda smiled and said "That's part of what I like about him; no bullshit. Piedro was like that to."

"I suppose it is an admirable trait. Is that what you came to talk to me about?"

"Non." She said simply still watching him. The room was quiet for a few short minutes as the pair sized each other up. Finally she said, "Dr. Banner, when was the last time you had something to live for? Before her I mean."

Bruce sighed and said, "A very long time... even longer if you consider all the time I lived for her and she wasn't really mine to live for."

Wanda nodded solemnly, "What would you do if you lost her now?"

Bruce started a little beginning to get angry, "Why would you ask something like that?"

"Can you answer it? I really don'y care what the answer is, but can you answer it?" Wanda said calmly unfazed by the tempered Doctor.

"Yes, I can." He said simply.

Wanda nodded sadly and said, "Then you're still just sitting around waiting for this to fail. Don't get me wrong, you're not alone, she said the same thing, but it's not going to get you anywhere except wherever you would be without her. Take it from me. When you've found someone you simply don't know how you could live without, that's when it finally becomes worth your would do anything to keep from loosing her. Even dealing with your own demons. You're both more willing to become your demons then fight them to stay together."

Bruce was silent for a moment before he said, "You have an awful lot to say about demons for someone who doesn't have any."

"Who says I don't. Did you know I nearly blew my own hand off trying to control this?" She asked making waves of red energy appear in the air around her. "Did you know I was drugged and locked in a cell for months away from my brother with nothing but a set of child's building blocks to hone my powers on? Did you know when they experimented on me it was months of excruciating agony? Did you know that I lost the one person I knew with all my heart and sole I could never live without?"

Bruce shook his head half in sorrow for the young girl and half in frustration, "I didn't and I'm sorry for it, but it's not the same. I have no control over him. I've killed people, I've nearly killed Natasha more than once. Don't you see? I can't face my demons to keep her. I loose her either way, at least this way she lives."

"Do you know what she said to me when I asked her if she knew what it felt like to have someone that she didn't know who she was without? She said that she didn't because she knew what she would become without you. I do too. I saw it, her when she was the Black Widow and every trace of Natasha was gone. I saw her break Clint's ribs, I fought back the plague trying to take over her brain while Steve brought you back. You were willing to risk letting the hulk take over to keep her away from that life once. Is she no longer worth it to you?"

"It's not like that." Bruce said standing up and getting angry.

"Yes it is." She said standing up as well and yelling back at him, "You are willing to let her become that again to keep yourself from having to deal with the Other Guy. You're a coward and we have no place for that here, so make up your mind. Either learn to live with him or get the hell out and let us deal with the Black Widow the only way we know how. A mercy killing. She was wrong. She can't live without you. We can't allow it." With that she turned and headed for the door looking over her shoulder long enough to say, "You were wrong too Dr. Banner, there is someone you don't know how you could live without, and his name is the Hulk." with that, she was gone.


	16. Chapter 16

Natasha followed the dumpy little man farther and farther into the ancient Egyptian crypt as the sloping walls of the pyramid opened up into several rooms. There was the briefest second where she realized something was wrong and then it was too late. Her vision went black and the portly little man let her fall to the floor in a heap.

"As you may know," Nick Fury started with a huff knowing this was going to end with him seeing green, "Captain America and Black Widow are on private assignments that concern the security of this realm. As of seven o'clock last night Black Widow has missed three check ins with the base."

Banner's pacing stopped as he walked strongly and firmly up to the desk that separated Fury from the other Avengers and their team. "I asked where Natasha was two nights ago." he said calmly.

"And I told you, you didn't need to know." Fury responded evenly.

"Well now she's missing so I'd say that means I god damn needed to know." He boomed making the whole room go deathly still.

"Mr. Banner if you please we need to get this organized so that we can have the best chance of finding her." Fury tried to reason.

"I've had enough of your bull shit Fury. Tell me where Natasha is." Bruce said his breathing getting heavier and more labored.

"Dr. Banner..." Fury began but was quickly cut off.

"No! Tell me where Natasha is now!" Bruce shouted eyes going green slamming a ham sized fist onto the glass table and cracking it.

"Miss Romanoff was last reported to have entered Keops pyramid in Cairo Egypt, but Doctor Banner you must understand the power she was after was one of the infinity stones it is highly danger..."

"I don't care." Bruce said flatly on his way out the door. He marched straight into the hanger bay yelling down one of the pilots as he seated himself in the back of one of the many jets and programed the location into the plane's navigation. He didn't give a damn how dangerous it was. He was going to get his Natasha back, because now he knew who he was without her, and no one liked the Other Guy when he was mad.

Fury ground his teeth as he registered the hanger bay opening and a plane launching. "Do we go after him director?" Sam asked raising his eyebrow.

"Not alone. Call the Avengers... all of them."

"I won't call Barton." Wanda said flatly.

"It's Natasha. He'll come either way." Fury said dubiously.

"So what we need Thor, Tony, Clint and Steve?" Rhodes ticked off on his fingers.

"No, leave Steve, Wanda, and Thor out of this. If Thor's right we'll have enough on our hands without bringing more powers into this fight. Natural talent and mech skills only." Fury commanded leaving the others dubious.

Natasha woke chained to a wall by her bloody wrist. "Good morning Black Widow." The same portly man said smiling at her from a metal chair across the room. An odd headdress like that of the ancient Pharaohs sat before him a gleaming red stone imbedded in the forehead. Natasha groaned, she had found the infinity stone, only it had found her first.

"Now just think how perfect it is that you came to visit. I need your husband for just a few moments if you don't mine." The plump man sniveled.

"Not married." Natasha choked out through her parched mouth.

"Hm, no? I would have though by now... after everything you've been though? He seems like he would be such a traditional man... but I suppose... no not even he can see through everything you've done."

"Well you know Steve." Natasha brushed it off hoping that her public work with the Super Soldier had helped to keep her real love life a secret.

The man laughed a wet kind of noise that made Natasha want to cough for him and said, "Yes, charming I'm sure, but less fun I think when he's all riled up."

Natasha, deciding she was better off silent then wandering down this path of questioning asked, "So, which infinity stone is that?"

"Ah bright child... it is the Strength Stone my dear, not that that knowledge will do you any good once I have your little... Friend here. It allows me to absorb anyone's power and well, as you know, he really is something special isn't he?" The toad of a man asked with another wet laugh before turning and leaving her to bleed onto the wall from where her cuffs cut into her. The only thing Natasha could think was... crap... before something stuck her from the back of the head and she blacked out once more.

Bruce Banner's breathing was slow and regulated, his eyes were closed and his nostrils flared with every breath as the classical music in his headphones attempted to block out the world. He knew the rest of the avengers were probably right behind him, he even felt a little guilty for having threatened the concerned pilot with the other guy when questioned whether or not he had permission to take the jet, but at the moment he really couldn't bring himself to care. The longer Bruce sat in the plane the closer and closer to the surface the Other Guy got. Damn Fury for not telling him where Natasha was when he had asked the first time. Damn Steve for not telling him they were leaving when it became clear to him Natasha would not. For that matter damn Natasha for not telling him herself.

For every part of him that was aware it was childish for her not to have told him there were two telling him that he had treated her like a child by dismissing her the way he had and could hardly have expected any different. The only thing that kept him calm enough to stay in his natural form all the way to the city of Cairo was knowing that it was Natasha that had been taken. She knew how to take care of herself and was the most slippery and cunning person he had ever met. If anyone could get themselves out of this it was she.

The plane landed a few hundred yards from the pyramid in question and Bruce cracked the emergency hatch and jumped out before the jets were powered down enough for the exit ramp's security lock to disengage. Bruce was contemplating going green now and just ripping the whole damn structure into rubble, but the risk of Natasha being hurt in the process and the lack of popularity he would earn by destroying one of the wonders of the world convinced him to stay human for now.

He had to slither around the entrance in an attempt to avoid the guards and was somewhat confused when he was sure they had seen him several times and yet the did not react. Making his way inside anyway he followed the winding paths into a set of chambers filled with a mix of modern and ancient technologies and artifacts. Before him along the left side of the first smaller chamber Natasha was chained to a metal chair that was bolted into the hard rock floor at every foot. Her red hair was smeared with dust, sweat, and something that looked distinctly like blood as her head hung unmoving on her neck.

Bruce couldn't hold back the soft breath of "Tasha" that slipped from his worried lips. Quiet though his utterance had been and unconscious though she had seemed Natasha's head shot up and strained on her neck as she attempted to look at him.

"No" she said a look of terror on her face, but her cry was straggled and there was an audible wheeze in her breath that made Bruce's medical experience kick in. He leapt towards her to help her remove what ever was restricting her airway only to be grabbed from behind.

"Bruce don't change! Relax!" Natasha screamed before her airway was cut off completely. She watched as two men roughly dragged Bruce to kneel in front of where Natasha was now being gagged by one of her captors.

"Not too tight," Instructed the portly man from the passage that lead into the larger chamber, "I want him to be able to hear her scream and she will scream." He promised.

Natasha snorted disbelievingly at him taking her eyes off Bruce's only long enough to roll them in exasperation with her captor. She knew that her facade would only help keep Bruce calm for so long, but she also knew that the Avengers couldn't be far behind. She was unsure that this man could be bested once he got the Hulk's powers, but he was no more than a man without them.

"Wellcome Dr. Banner, I am so sorry to have had to bring you in this way, it is quite impolite of me considering I plan on having you stay for a while, as my guest of course. You have something I need, but I can assure you that as soon as I have it your little lady friend here is all yours. Send her home, keep her here with you, I don't much care, although I must say you really could have fallen in love with some one a little less... challenging, she has been a bit of a pain in my behind since joining me yesterday."

"What do you want?" Bruce wanted to know as he knelt six feet from Natasha's chair watching as a thug whispered in her ear, caressing her neck and collarbone with a finger as he roughly gagged her. She was breathing deep and evenly and blinking languidly at him as if they were relaxing on the couch together back at the tower an odd island of calm in this hostile environment.

"Why the Hulk of course." The little toad man said with a moist laugh.

"Are you aware you have walking pneumonia?" Bruce asked thoughtfully as if he hadn't even heard the man's desire.

The man laughed wetly again, "One of the side effects, worth it though, I assure you. You see the poor man who's strength I currently hold had a bit of an issue with his lungs, something about being seven foot eight inches and over four hundred pounds of solid muscle. I can dead lift over a ton though, quite shocking for someone my size no? This stone truly is a wonder, but after I have the Hulk's power I won't need him anymore now will I?"

"I suppose not." Bruce said fighting to keep the calm that he saw in Natasha's eyes. "You won't be able to control him." Bruce tried to explain. "He's a side effect just like that cough, except he'll take over and leave you with nothing."

"And here I thought you were supposed to be smart Doctor." the man clucked shaking his head in mock disappointment, "I take only physical attributes from those who's powers I wear. I won't develop your... illness of the mind that prevents you from controlling him."

Bruce's laugh was almost genuine, "Illness of the mind? You mistake the mind from the brain and the brain is physical."

Well then I guess we'll just have to see won't we Dr. Banner. Eugene, the girl if you please?"

Natasha couldn't hold back a snort of humor, really the torturer's name was Eugene? "Laugh while you can little sparrow, because I'm about to clip your wings." Said a deep rumbling voice form behind her. When he came into view she did laugh through her gag, he was the most stereotypical bad horror movie torturer she had ever seen. He was tall and large with an extra layer of fat over decent muscles to make him look stronger than he was, his hair was matted and dirty, but was once blond. He was missing teeth and had a pock marked face probably from a disease as a child. He war a dirty t-shirt and jeans with a butcher's apron over it that was blood stained and worn as were his leather gloves. In his hand however was quite possibly the least intimidating torture weapon she had ever seen; a pair of tweezers summed the outfit up truly comical in his large hand.

"Eugene, I thought I told you no more theatrics." The frog man fussed stomping his foot and turning red around the edges.

"Sorry boss." Eugene said in a tone akin to a child denied sweets. Eugene set the tweezers down and turned to face Natasha, he used a large filthy palm to squish her bruised face this way and that inspecting her. He stepped back as it to leave her, but whirled back around with all of his force to slap her across the face. Her nose bled, but didn't break as her head snapped around so hard she got whiplash. She had known it was coming and relaxed attempting to rotate away from it, but she had underestimated his strength. She coughed and blood ran down the back of her throat and her vision cleared enough to see Bruce purple with rage struggling against both his captors and the other guy fighting to get out.

She shook her head at him trying to tell him she was fine the best she could, but she knew if this kept up he would loose control.

"Hurry up Eugene. If Dr. Banner knows she's here the Avengers might by now to. Kill her if you have to." The man demanded.

Eugene looked a little sadly at Natasha as the portly man lowered the headdress with the stone in it onto his head. With a shrug Eugene clasped a ham like hand all the way around Natasha's throat and squeezed. Natasha sputtered, heaved, spasmed a little and then relaxed as her body went through the compulsory instincts related to asphyxiation at lightning speed before her mind took over and she relaxed into the killing hold with a sort of cold awareness that he was killing her.

She listened as the breathing on the other side of Eugene became less human and more like a stampeding bull as spots began to appear in her vision. The frog man cackled wetly and reached out to touch the back of the Hulk's leg as he leapt forwards taring Eugene off of Natasha and flinging him aside.

Natasha coughed and sputtered as the breath rushed back into her. Bruce looked about ready to rip the chair that bound her to pieces so she jingled the cuffs that bound her hands behind her back and he ripped them apart like paper. She grappled with her gag for a few seconds as the Hulk looked around snorting at things.

"Easy big guy. I'm alright." Natasha said reaching out to him as the little frog man behind the hulk began to laugh. "Ok Big Guy, can you come back to me now? I need you to calm down."

The Hulk was angry however, and wasn't ready to be calmed. Leaning over he picked up Eugene and threw him across the room only to have the frog man leap up and grab him out of the air before he could hit the far wall. "You're coming with me." He said grabbing Natasha up with strength that could only be the Hulks and dragging her into a glass cage in the middle of the larger room beyond. He chained her to yet another chair and gagged her once more. The hulk cam barreling after them only to have the frog man grab him and throw him into the ground.

They fought for several minutes neither gaining the advantage, but it was clear that the infinity stone kept the task from wearing on the smaller man as the hulk struggled. Eventually after much grunting and rumbling the smaller man managed to pin the hulk to the ground.

In the moments of silence that followed Eugene cam to look in on Natasha where she sat trapped in her cage. "She's kinda pretty, you sure we can't just keep her boss?" he asked eyeing her.

"And do what with her?" The man panted still struggling to keep the hulk subdued under him, "She's the worlds best spy, we'd be dead within the hour."

"secong" Natasha tried to say through her gag.

"What?" frog man asked.

"Second best." The hulk ground out in his gravely voice shaking his huge green head.

"Second?" The man said confused.

"That's right mother fucker." Nick Fury said from the chamber's entrance a rocket launcher resting on one shoulder and half of he Avengers behind him weapons drawn.


End file.
